Abstract
Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a leading contributor to global disease burden. Recent studies have shown that genetic factors play significant roles in the susceptibility to this condition; however, the underlying genetic basis currently remains largely unknown. Short tandem repeat (STR) has been proposed as an explanatory factor in the “missing heritability” of complex diseases or traits. Methods: We investigated STR variations from 15 MDD patients and 10 ethnically matched healthy controls based on their deep whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data. The lobSTR software was used to computationally determine STRs. Results: The results of the Mexican-American sample showed that STRs are significantly richer in healthy controls than in MDD cases on each of the 23 chromosomes (all false discovery rates, FDR P-values < 0.0062); while for the Australian of European-ancestry sample, there was no statistically significant STRs difference between MDD cases and controls. Limitations: High quality WGS costs limited obtaining larger datasets. Conclusions: This preliminary work is the first study that STR variations are applied to investigate MDD based on WGS data. The results on Mexican-American population may imply that within the same ancestry, targeted sequencing on a specific chromosome or region of genome would be sufficient for examining the relationship between STR and MDD. Further studies should examine larger sequencing datasets on other ethnic groups.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 305-309 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Journal of Affective Disorders |
Volume | 232 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - May 2018 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Genetic marker
- Heritability
- Major depressive disorder
- Psychiatric genetics
- Whole-genome sequencing