Browsing by Author "Nievergelt, Caroline M"

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    ItemOpen Access
    An epigenome-wide association study of posttraumatic stress disorder in US veterans implicates several new DNA methylation loci.
    (Clinical epigenetics, 2020-03) Logue, Mark W; Miller, Mark W; Wolf, Erika J; Huber, Bertrand Russ; Morrison, Filomene G; Zhou, Zhenwei; Zheng, Yuanchao; Smith, Alicia K; Daskalakis, Nikolaos P; Ratanatharathorn, Andrew; Uddin, Monica; Nievergelt, Caroline M; Ashley-Koch, Allison E; Baker, Dewleen G; Beckham, Jean C; Garrett, Melanie E; Boks, Marco P; Geuze, Elbert; Grant, Gerald A; Hauser, Michael A; Kessler, Ronald C; Kimbrel, Nathan A; Maihofer, Adam X; Marx, Christine E; Qin, Xue-Jun; Risbrough, Victoria B; Rutten, Bart PF; Stein, Murray B; Ursano, Robert J; Vermetten, Eric; Vinkers, Christiaan H; Ware, Erin B; Stone, Annjanette; Schichman, Steven A; McGlinchey, Regina E; Milberg, William P; Hayes, Jasmeet P; Verfaellie, Mieke; Traumatic Stress Brain Study Group

    Background

    Previous studies using candidate gene and genome-wide approaches have identified epigenetic changes in DNA methylation (DNAm) associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

    Methods

    In this study, we performed an EWAS of PTSD in a cohort of Veterans (n = 378 lifetime PTSD cases and 135 controls) from the Translational Research Center for TBI and Stress Disorders (TRACTS) cohort assessed using the Illumina EPIC Methylation BeadChip which assesses DNAm at more than 850,000 sites throughout the genome. Our model included covariates for ancestry, cell heterogeneity, sex, age, and a smoking score based on DNAm at 39 smoking-associated CpGs. We also examined in EPIC-based DNAm data generated from pre-frontal cortex (PFC) tissue from the National PTSD Brain Bank (n = 72).

    Results

    The analysis of blood samples yielded one genome-wide significant association with PTSD at cg19534438 in the gene G0S2 (p = 1.19 × 10-7, padj = 0.048). This association was replicated in an independent PGC-PTSD-EWAS consortium meta-analysis of military cohorts (p = 0.0024). We also observed association with the smoking-related locus cg05575921 in AHRR despite inclusion of a methylation-based smoking score covariate (p = 9.16 × 10-6), which replicates a previously observed PGC-PTSD-EWAS association (Smith et al. 2019), and yields evidence consistent with a smoking-independent effect. The top 100 EWAS loci were then examined in the PFC data. One of the blood-based PTSD loci, cg04130728 in CHST11, which was in the top 10 loci in blood, but which was not genome-wide significant, was significantly associated with PTSD in brain tissue (in blood p = 1.19 × 10-5, padj = 0.60, in brain, p = 0.00032 with the same direction of effect). Gene set enrichment analysis of the top 500 EWAS loci yielded several significant overlapping GO terms involved in pathogen response, including "Response to lipopolysaccharide" (p = 6.97 × 10-6, padj = 0.042).

    Conclusions

    The cross replication observed in independent cohorts is evidence that DNA methylation in peripheral tissue can yield consistent and replicable PTSD associations, and our results also suggest that that some PTSD associations observed in peripheral tissue may mirror associations in the brain.
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    ItemOpen Access
    International meta-analysis of PTSD genome-wide association studies identifies sex- and ancestry-specific genetic risk loci.
    (Nature communications, 2019-10) Nievergelt, Caroline M; Maihofer, Adam X; Klengel, Torsten; Atkinson, Elizabeth G; Chen, Chia-Yen; Choi, Karmel W; Coleman, Jonathan RI; Dalvie, Shareefa; Duncan, Laramie E; Gelernter, Joel; Levey, Daniel F; Logue, Mark W; Polimanti, Renato; Provost, Allison C; Ratanatharathorn, Andrew; Stein, Murray B; Torres, Katy; Aiello, Allison E; Almli, Lynn M; Amstadter, Ananda B; Andersen, Søren B; Andreassen, Ole A; Arbisi, Paul A; Ashley-Koch, Allison E; Austin, S Bryn; Avdibegovic, Esmina; Babić, Dragan; Bækvad-Hansen, Marie; Baker, Dewleen G; Beckham, Jean C; Bierut, Laura J; Bisson, Jonathan I; Boks, Marco P; Bolger, Elizabeth A; Børglum, Anders D; Bradley, Bekh; Brashear, Megan; Breen, Gerome; Bryant, Richard A; Bustamante, Angela C; Bybjerg-Grauholm, Jonas; Calabrese, Joseph R; Caldas-de-Almeida, José M; Dale, Anders M; Daly, Mark J; Daskalakis, Nikolaos P; Deckert, Jürgen; Delahanty, Douglas L; Dennis, Michelle F; Disner, Seth G; Domschke, Katharina; Dzubur-Kulenovic, Alma; Erbes, Christopher R; Evans, Alexandra; Farrer, Lindsay A; Feeny, Norah C; Flory, Janine D; Forbes, David; Franz, Carol E; Galea, Sandro; Garrett, Melanie E; Gelaye, Bizu; Geuze, Elbert; Gillespie, Charles; Uka, Aferdita Goci; Gordon, Scott D; Guffanti, Guia; Hammamieh, Rasha; Harnal, Supriya; Hauser, Michael A; Heath, Andrew C; Hemmings, Sian MJ; Hougaard, David Michael; Jakovljevic, Miro; Jett, Marti; Johnson, Eric Otto; Jones, Ian; Jovanovic, Tanja; Qin, Xue-Jun; Junglen, Angela G; Karstoft, Karen-Inge; Kaufman, Milissa L; Kessler, Ronald C; Khan, Alaptagin; Kimbrel, Nathan A; King, Anthony P; Koen, Nastassja; Kranzler, Henry R; Kremen, William S; Lawford, Bruce R; Lebois, Lauren AM; Lewis, Catrin E; Linnstaedt, Sarah D; Lori, Adriana; Lugonja, Bozo; Luykx, Jurjen J; Lyons, Michael J; Maples-Keller, Jessica; Marmar, Charles; Martin, Alicia R; Martin, Nicholas G; Maurer, Douglas; Mavissakalian, Matig R; McFarlane, Alexander; McGlinchey, Regina E; McLaughlin, Katie A; McLean, Samuel A; McLeay, Sarah; Mehta, Divya; Milberg, William P; Miller, Mark W; Morey, Rajendra A; Morris, Charles Phillip; Mors, Ole; Mortensen, Preben B; Neale, Benjamin M; Nelson, Elliot C; Nordentoft, Merete; Norman, Sonya B; O'Donnell, Meaghan; Orcutt, Holly K; Panizzon, Matthew S; Peters, Edward S; Peterson, Alan L; Peverill, Matthew; Pietrzak, Robert H; Polusny, Melissa A; Rice, John P; Ripke, Stephan; Risbrough, Victoria B; Roberts, Andrea L; Rothbaum, Alex O; Rothbaum, Barbara O; Roy-Byrne, Peter; Ruggiero, Ken; Rung, Ariane; Rutten, Bart PF; Saccone, Nancy L; Sanchez, Sixto E; Schijven, Dick; Seedat, Soraya; Seligowski, Antonia V; Seng, Julia S; Sheerin, Christina M; Silove, Derrick; Smith, Alicia K; Smoller, Jordan W; Sponheim, Scott R; Stein, Dan J; Stevens, Jennifer S; Sumner, Jennifer A; Teicher, Martin H; Thompson, Wesley K; Trapido, Edward; Uddin, Monica; Ursano, Robert J; van den Heuvel, Leigh Luella; Van Hooff, Miranda; Vermetten, Eric; Vinkers, Christiaan H; Voisey, Joanne; Wang, Yunpeng; Wang, Zhewu; Werge, Thomas; Williams, Michelle A; Williamson, Douglas E; Winternitz, Sherry; Wolf, Christiane; Wolf, Erika J; Wolff, Jonathan D; Yehuda, Rachel; Young, Ross McD; Young, Keith A; Zhao, Hongyu; Zoellner, Lori A; Liberzon, Israel; Ressler, Kerry J; Haas, Magali; Koenen, Karestan C
    The risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following trauma is heritable, but robust common variants have yet to be identified. In a multi-ethnic cohort including over 30,000 PTSD cases and 170,000 controls we conduct a genome-wide association study of PTSD. We demonstrate SNP-based heritability estimates of 5-20%, varying by sex. Three genome-wide significant loci are identified, 2 in European and 1 in African-ancestry analyses. Analyses stratified by sex implicate 3 additional loci in men. Along with other novel genes and non-coding RNAs, a Parkinson's disease gene involved in dopamine regulation, PARK2, is associated with PTSD. Finally, we demonstrate that polygenic risk for PTSD is significantly predictive of re-experiencing symptoms in the Million Veteran Program dataset, although specific loci did not replicate. These results demonstrate the role of genetic variation in the biology of risk for PTSD and highlight the necessity of conducting sex-stratified analyses and expanding GWAS beyond European ancestry populations.
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    ItemOpen Access
    The Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Workgroup: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Enters the Age of Large-Scale Genomic Collaboration.
    (Neuropsychopharmacology, 2015-09) Logue, Mark W; Amstadter, Ananda B; Baker, Dewleen G; Duncan, Laramie; Koenen, Karestan C; Liberzon, Israel; Miller, Mark W; Morey, Rajendra A; Nievergelt, Caroline M; Ressler, Kerry J; Smith, Alicia K; Smoller, Jordan W; Stein, Murray B; Sumner, Jennifer A; Uddin, Monica
    The development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is influenced by genetic factors. Although there have been some replicated candidates, the identification of risk variants for PTSD has lagged behind genetic research of other psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, autism, and bipolar disorder. Psychiatric genetics has moved beyond examination of specific candidate genes in favor of the genome-wide association study (GWAS) strategy of very large numbers of samples, which allows for the discovery of previously unsuspected genes and molecular pathways. The successes of genetic studies of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have been aided by the formation of a large-scale GWAS consortium: the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC). In contrast, only a handful of GWAS of PTSD have appeared in the literature to date. Here we describe the formation of a group dedicated to large-scale study of PTSD genetics: the PGC-PTSD. The PGC-PTSD faces challenges related to the contingency on trauma exposure and the large degree of ancestral genetic diversity within and across participating studies. Using the PGC analysis pipeline supplemented by analyses tailored to address these challenges, we anticipate that our first large-scale GWAS of PTSD will comprise over 10 000 cases and 30 000 trauma-exposed controls. Following in the footsteps of our PGC forerunners, this collaboration-of a scope that is unprecedented in the field of traumatic stress-will lead the search for replicable genetic associations and new insights into the biological underpinnings of PTSD.
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    ItemOpen Access
    The Relationship of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization and Population-Based Sibling Comparison Study.
    (Biological psychiatry, 2023-02) Wendt, Frank R; Garcia-Argibay, Miguel; Cabrera-Mendoza, Brenda; Valdimarsdóttir, Unnur A; Gelernter, Joel; Stein, Murray B; Nivard, Michel G; Maihofer, Adam X; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium; Nievergelt, Caroline M; Larsson, Henrik; Mattheisen, Manuel; Polimanti, Renato; Meier, Sandra M

    Background

    Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are associated, but it is unclear if this is a causal relationship or confounding. We used genetic analyses and sibling comparisons to clarify the direction of this relationship.

    Methods

    Linkage disequilibrium score regression and 2-sample Mendelian randomization were used to test for genetic correlation (rg) and bidirectional causal effects using European ancestry genome-wide association studies of ADHD (20,183 cases and 35,191 controls) and 6 PTSD definitions (up to 320,369 individuals). Several additional variables were included in the analysis to verify the independence of the ADHD-PTSD relationship. In a population-based sibling comparison (N = 2,082,118 individuals), Cox regression models were fitted to account for time at risk, a range of sociodemographic factors, and unmeasured familial confounders (via sibling comparisons).

    Results

    ADHD and PTSD had consistent rg (rg range, 0.43-0.52; p <  .001). ADHD genetic liability was causally linked with increased risk for PTSD (β = 0.367; 95% CI, 0.186-0.552; p = 7.68 × 10-5). This result was not affected by heterogeneity, horizontal pleiotropy (Mendelian randomization Egger intercept = 4.34 × 10-4, p = .961), or other phenotypes and was consistent across PTSD datasets. However, we found no consistent associations between PTSD genetic liability and ADHD risk. Individuals diagnosed with ADHD were at a higher risk for developing PTSD than their undiagnosed sibling (hazard ratio = 2.37; 95% CI, 1.98-3.53).

    Conclusions

    Our findings add novel evidence supporting the need for early and effective treatment of ADHD, as patients with this diagnosis are at significantly higher risk to develop PTSD later in life.