+ All Categories
Home > Documents > Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of...

Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of...

Date post: 17-Aug-2020
Category:
Upload: others
View: 1 times
Download: 0 times
Share this document with a friend
28
Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder Miruna C. Barbu, Rosie M. Walker, David M. Howard, Kathryn L. Evans, Heather C. Whalley, David J. Porteous, Stewart W. Morris, Ian J. Deary, Riccardo E. Marioni, Toni- Kim Clarke*, Andrew M. McIntosh* Abstract Objective: DNA methylation (DNAm) is associated with environmental risk factors for major depressive disorder (MDD) but has not yet been tested for its ability to discriminate individuals with MDD from unaffected individuals. Methods: Using penalized regression based on genome- wide CpG methylation, we trained a DNAm risk score of MDD (DNAm-RS) in 1,223 cases and 1,824 controls and tested in a second independent sample of 363 prevalent cases and 1,417 controls. Using DNA from 1,607 unaffected individuals, we tested whether DNAm-RS could discriminate the 190 incident cases of lifetime MDD from the 1,417 individuals who remained unaffected at follow-up. Results: A weighted linear combination of 196 CpG sites were derived from the training sample to form a DNAm-RS. The DNAm-RS explained 1.75% of the variance in MDD risk in an independent case-control sample and significantly predicted future incident episodes of MDD at follow up (R 2 =0.52%). DNAm-RS and MDD polygenic risk scores together additively explained 3.99% of the variance in prevalent MDD. The DNAm-RS was also significantly associated with lifestyle factors associated with MDD, including smoking status ( =0.440, p=<2x10 -16 ) and alcohol use ( =0.092, p=9.85x10 -5 ). The DNAm-RS remained significantly associated with MDD after adjustment for these environmental factors (independent association: =0.338, p=1.17x10 -7 association post-adjustment: =0.081, p=0.0006). Conclusions: A novel risk score of MDD based on DNAm data significantly discriminated MDD cases from controls in an independent dataset, and controls who would subsequently . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review) (which was not The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123 doi: medRxiv preprint NOTE: This preprint reports new research that has not been certified by peer review and should not be used to guide clinical practice.
Transcript
Page 1: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder

Miruna C. Barbu, Rosie M. Walker, David M. Howard, Kathryn L. Evans, Heather C. Whalley, David J. Porteous, Stewart W. Morris, Ian J. Deary, Riccardo E. Marioni, Toni-

Kim Clarke*, Andrew M. McIntosh*

Abstract

Objective: DNA methylation (DNAm) is associated with environmental risk factors for major

depressive disorder (MDD) but has not yet been tested for its ability to discriminate individuals

with MDD from unaffected individuals. Methods: Using penalized regression based on genome-

wide CpG methylation, we trained a DNAm risk score of MDD (DNAm-RS) in 1,223 cases and

1,824 controls and tested in a second independent sample of 363 prevalent cases and 1,417

controls. Using DNA from 1,607 unaffected individuals, we tested whether DNAm-RS could

discriminate the 190 incident cases of lifetime MDD from the 1,417 individuals who remained

unaffected at follow-up. Results: A weighted linear combination of 196 CpG sites were derived

from the training sample to form a DNAm-RS. The DNAm-RS explained 1.75% of the variance

in MDD risk in an independent case-control sample and significantly predicted future incident

episodes of MDD at follow up (R2=0.52%). DNAm-RS and MDD polygenic risk scores together

additively explained 3.99% of the variance in prevalent MDD. The DNAm-RS was also

significantly associated with lifestyle factors associated with MDD, including smoking status

(β=0.440, p=<2x10-16) and alcohol use (β=0.092, p=9.85x10-5). The DNAm-RS remained

significantly associated with MDD after adjustment for these environmental factors (independent

association: β=0.338, p=1.17x10-7 association post-adjustment: β=0.081, p=0.0006).

Conclusions: A novel risk score of MDD based on DNAm data significantly discriminated

MDD cases from controls in an independent dataset, and controls who would subsequently

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

NOTE: This preprint reports new research that has not been certified by peer review and should not be used to guide clinical practice.

Page 2: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

develop MDD from those who remained unaffected. DNAm-RS captured the effects of exposure

to key lifestyle risk factors for MDD, revealing a potential role in risk stratification.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 3: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Introduction

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a frequently disabling condition with an estimated

point prevalence of 4.4% (1). Recent genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have begun to

elucidate the genetic architecture of MDD (2; 3) and polygenic risk scores (PRS) derived from

the most recent study explain 1.5-3.2% of MDD risk in independent cohorts (4). As sole

predictors of MDD status, PRS have limited clinical utility and may not capture the larger

environmental contributions to risk.

Variation in DNA methylation (DNAm) in affected by both of genetic and environmental

factors, which act in combination to confer risk for diseases and complex traits (5), and has

recently been studied in relation to MDD. An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of

7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated in

association with depressive symptoms (6). Annotation of these sites implicated genes involved in

axon guidance. A study of 150 MZ twins discordant for early-onset MDD identified 760

differentially methylated CpG sites which mapped to neuronal circuitry and plasticity genes (7).

These findings suggest that differences in DNAm may be relevant to the causes of MDD.

Many lifestyle factors associated with MDD are also robustly associated with DNAm.

Smoking (8), obesity (9; 10) and alcohol consumption (11) are each associated with differential

genome-wide DNAm. These DNAm signatures have been leveraged, using penalized regression

to identify a subset of informative CpG sites, to create DNAm risk scores (DNAm-RS) which

can predict the trait of interest in an independent cohort. McCartney and colleagues showed that

DNAm scores explained 61% of the variance in smoking status and 12.5% of the variance in

body mass index (BMI) and alcohol consumption. When modelled alongside PRS, DNAm scores

contribute additively to the variance explained for these traits (12). DNAm therefore acts as an

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 4: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

archive of exposure to several risk factors for poor mental health, but its value as a predictor of

MDD, however, remains unexplored.

The aim of this study was to use penalized regression to train a predictor of MDD based

on DNAm in the Generation Scotland: Scottish Family Health Study (GS:SFHS) cohort. A

training set of 1,223 MDD cases and 1,824 controls was used to create an MDD DNAm risk

score (DNAm-RS) in 1,970 independent individuals (363 prevalent and 190 incident cases; 1,417

controls). Using longitudinal clinical data, we also tested whether baseline DNAm-RS would

predict future MDD status at follow-up between 4-10 years later. Finally, to explore whether the

MDD DNAm-RS captures exposure to lifestyle factors associated with MDD, we tested the

association between MDD DNAm-RS and alcohol use, BMI, smoking status, and pack years, as

well as self-reported antidepressant use.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 5: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Methods

Study population: Generation Scotland - the Scottish Family Health Study (GS:SFHS)

Phenotypic information, DNAm data and genotypes were provided by GS:SFHS for the

current investigation. GS:SFHS is a family-based population cohort investigating the genetics of

health and disease in approximately 24,000 individuals across Scotland (13; 14). Baseline data

were collected between 2006 and 2011. The present study focuses on 5,017 individuals for

whom DNAm data from a blood draw at baseline contact, baseline phenotypic data, and

genotype data were available. Environmental data, such as lifestyle factors, were also measured

(BMI) or recorded (smoking status, alcohol consumption) on nearly all study participants.

Longitudinal phenotypic data is available for a subset of individuals who responded to a

recontact request. For these individuals we have information on MDD case-control status both at

baseline and follow-up, which occurred 4-10 years later (2015-2016). GS:SFHS received ethical

approval from NHS Tayside Research Ethics Committee (REC reference number 05/S1401/89)

and has Research Tissue Bank Status (reference: 15/ES/0040). W

Phenotypes

BMI was calculated using height (cm) and weight (kg) measured by clinical staff during

baseline recruitment. Alcohol intake was self-reported as part of a pre-clinical questionnaire.

Participants were asked whether they were ‘never’ ‘former’ or ‘current’ drinkers. Current

drinkers were asked: “During the past week, please record how many units of alcohol you have

had”. Smoking status was recorded by asking participants: “Have you ever smoked tobacco?”

Answers were recorded as: “Yes, currently smoke; Yes, but stopped within the past 12 months;

Yes, but stopped more than 12 months ago; No, never smoked”. For the current study, we

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 6: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

assigned smoking status as a binary variable, by converting all “Yes” answers to smoker (1), and

“No” to non-smoker (0). Using smoking behaviour data, pack years were calculated by

multiplying the number of cigarette packs (20 cigarettes/pack) smoked per day by the number of

years a person has smoked (16). Antidepressant use was self-reported by participants at the

baseline assessment and has been described in greater detail previously (17; Supplementary

Material).

Baseline MDD status was measured using the axis-I Structured Clinical Interview of the

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, version IV (SCID) and was administered to participants who

answered “yes” to either of two screening questions (see supplemental methods). MDD status

was measured prospectively by remote paper questionnaire between 4 and 10 years after baseline

assessment (2015-2016) using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview - Short Form

(CIDI-SF) as described previously (15).

Control participants were defined as those individuals who answered “no” to the two

screening questions (see supplemental methods) and did not fulfill criteria for a diagnosis of

current or previous MDD following the SCID interview and CIDI-SF remote follow-up

assessment. Individuals fulfilling criteria for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, or who self-

reported these diagnoses, were also excluded from both case and control groups.

DNA methylation

9,873 individuals in GS:SFHS had genome-wide DNAm data profiled from blood

samples using the Illumina Human-MethylationEPIC BeadChip. The raw data were acquired,

preprocessed and quality checked in two different batches, hereafter named batch 1 (N = 5,190)

and batch 2 (N = 4,588).

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 7: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

In batch 1, ShinyMethyl (18) was used to exclude samples where predicted sex

mismatched recorded sex, as well as to plot the log median intensity of methylated and

unmethylated signals per array and inspect the output from the control probes; outlying samples

detected by visually inspection were excluded. WateRmelon (19) was then used to remove

probes in which > 1% of cytosine-guanine dinucleotide had a detection p-value > 0.05; probes

with a beadcount of < 3 in more than 5% samples; and probes in which > 5% of samples had a

detection p-value > 0.05 (12). Multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) plots were inspected to confirm

that there were no additional sample outliers. WateRmelon was then used to normalise the data,

data using the dasen method, and lumi (20) was used for conversion to M-values, which were

then pre-corrected for relatedness, estimated blood cell types, and processing batch using

DISSECT (21), for CpGs on autosomal chromosomes. The final dataset comprised corrected M-

values at 841,753 loci measured for 5,087 individuals.

In batch 2, meffil (22) and ShinyMethyl (18) were used for quality control of the raw

data. Using meffil, samples were removed if: there was a mismatch between self-reported and

methylation-predicted sex; they had > 1% of CpG sites with a detection p-value > 0.05; they

showed evidence of dye bias; they were outliers for the bisulphite conversion control probes; and

had a median methylated signal intensity > 3 standard deviations lower than expected.

Afterwards, shinyMethyl was used to perform further quality control, as described above for

batch 1. Multi-dimensional scaling plots were inspected, and outliers were excluded. Meffil was

then used again to identify and exclude poor-performing probes, which were deemed as such if:

they had a beadcount of < 3 in > 5% samples and/or > 5% samples had a detection p-value >

0.05. The data were normalised using the dasen method in wateRmelon, and the beta2m function

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 8: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

in lumi (20) was used to generate M-values. The final dataset comprised M-values for 773,860

loci measured in 4,450 individuals.

Genotyping and PRS profiling

Individuals were genotyped using the Illumina OmniExpress BeadChip. The raw

genotype data underwent a series of quality control steps: individuals with a call rate < 98%,

single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with a genotype rate < 98%, minor allele frequency <

1%, and Hardy-Weinberg p-value < 10−6 were removed from the initial dataset and then

imputation was performed using the Sanger Imputation Service with the Haplotype Reference

Consortium panel v1.1 (23; 4).

Using the largest available depression GWAS (4), depression PRS were computed using

Plink v1.90b4 (24) using SNPs that met a significance level of p ≤ 0.05, in line with previous

studies which have shown that this threshold explains the most variance in MDD status (4).

GWAS summary statistics excluding GS:SFHS were obtained in order to create PRS in the

GS:SFHS sample. Clumping was applied using a linkage disequilibrium r2 < 0.1 and a 500-kb

window.

DNAm predictor – training and testing datasets

In order to obtain a training and testing dataset, individuals were separated based on the

two batches described above. Supplementary Figure 1 provides a flowchart summary of the

analysis process.

Training dataset

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 9: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Batch 1 was used to train the DNAm predictor. The dataset consisted of controls who

were screened as unaffected (N = 1,824) at both baseline and follow-up (i.e. answered “no” to

screening questions at baseline and follow-up), or who screened positive but were subsequently

found not to fulfill diagnostic criteria for MDD using the SCID. MDD cases were those who

screened positive for depression by answering yes to one or more brief screening questions and

who subsequently fulfilled criteria for MDD at baseline SCID interview (N = 1,223). CpG sites

measured in these individuals were included as independent variables in a least absolute

shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) penalised regression model described below.

Depression status was regressed on age, sex, and ten genetic principal components, and the

extracted residuals from this model were input as the dependent variable in the LASSO

regression model.

LASSO penalised regression models were run using the “glmnet” function in R in order

to train DNAm predictors. We applied tenfold cross-validation and the mixing parameter was set

to 1 for our LASSO penalty. 196 CpGs were included in the predictor that corresponded to the

minimum mean cross-validated error (see Supplementary Excel file 1 in supplementary materials

for a list of CpG sites and their regression weights).

Testing dataset

Batch 2 was used in order to create MDD DNAm-RS using the CpG sites identified in the

LASSO regression models. To create a single DNAm-RS, the CpG weights corresponding to the

196 CpG sites identified in the training sample were multiplied by the CpG values in the

independent sample. The DNAm-RS were tested for association with prevalent MDD cases

(depressed at baseline, N=363) and incident MDD cases (healthy at baseline but fulfilling criteria

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 10: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

for MDD at follow-up, N=190). The same 1,417 controls were used as the comparison group for

both sets of MDD cases and were unaffected at both baseline and follow-up. The incident MDD

cases were used to assess if the DNAm-RS could predict a future episode of MDD.

Statistical methods

Association of DNAm-RS with depression

In order to test whether DNAm-RS is associated with prevalent and incident MDD, MDD

status was regressed on and (1) DNAm-RS in the prevalent cases and controls (N = 1,780); and

(2) DNAm-RS in the incident cases and controls (N = 1,607) using logistic regression. We also

tested the association of DNAm-RS with prevalent (N = 1,250) and incident (N = 1,195) MDD

in a subset of individuals with no self-reported antidepressant use.

To determine how much phenotypic variance in MDD DNAm-RS explained compared to

a genetic PRS, we regressed MDD status on (1) PRS; (2) DNAm-RS; and (3) PRS and DNAm-

RS using logistic regression and calculated McFadden’s R2 for each variable. In addition, using

the “ROCR” R package, we plotted the predictive ability of DNAm-RS in both incident and

prevalent cases and controls using a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve,

representing the sensitivity and specificity of the score in relation to depression.

Association of DNAm-RS with lifestyle factors and antidepressant use

We tested whether lifestyle factors previously shown to be associated with both MDD

and DNAm (8; 9; 10; 11; 12) were also associated with the DNAm-RS. Using linear regression,

we tested whether DNAm-RS associated with BMI, pack years, and alcohol consumption.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 11: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Logistic regression models were used to test whether DNAm associated with self-reported

antidepressant use and smoking status.

Association of DNAm-RS with depression when adjusting for lifestyle factors

Finally, to estimate how much variance DNAm-RS explains in MDD status when

adjusting for lifestyle factors, MDD status was modelled as a dependent variable with alcohol

consumption, BMI, smoking and pack years fit as covariates. We also tested the effect of fitting

self-reported antidepressant use in our models to determine whether the DNAm-RS would still

significantly contribute to the risk for MDD. This was carried out for both incident and prevalent

cases.

Results

Association of DNAm-RS with depression

We found DNAm-RS was significantly associated with prevalent (Ntotal = 1,780; cases =

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 12: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

363, controls = 1,417; β = 0.338, p = 1.17x10-7, R2 = 1.75%) and incident (Ntotal = 1,607; cases =

190, controls = 1,417; β = 0.193, p = 0.016, R2 = 0.52%) MDD. After adjustment for self-

reported antidepressant use, DNAm-RS was still significantly associated with prevalent MDD (β

= 0.236, p = 0.004, R2 = 0.77%; independent association: β = 0.338, p = 1.17x10-7, R2 = 1.75%;

Supplementary Table 3). See figure 1 for a ROC curve showing the ability of DNAm-RS to

discriminate between MDD cases and controls.

Figure 1. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve indicating the sensitivity and specificity of DNAm-RS for both prevalent and incident MDD. The legend shows the AUC estimates for DNAm-RS.

Both DNAm-RS (β = 0.338, p = 1.17x10-7, R2 = 1.75%) and PRS (β = 0.397, p=1.02x10-

9, R2 = 2.40%) accounted for a small proportion of the variance in risk of prevalent MDD. The

model including both DNAm-RS (β = 0.327, p = 5.66x10-7) and PRS (β = 0.384, p = 4.69x10-9)

demonstrated that these two risk scores act additively (R2 = 3.99%) and we found no evidence of

an interaction (β = -0.009, p = 0.892) (Supplementary Table 1 and Figure 2).

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 13: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Figure 2. Variance in prevalent MDD (R2; y-axis) explained by PRS and DNAm-RS.

Association of DNAm-RS with depression in cases and controls with no self-reported

antidepressant use

In MDD cases and controls with no self-reported antidepressant use (NPrevalent = 1,250, cases =

198, controls = 1,052; NIncident = 1,195, cases = 143, controls = 1,052), DNAm-RS was

significantly associated with prevalent (β = 0.331, p = 6.19x10-5, R2 = 1.66%) and incident (β =

0.232, p = 0.011, R2 = 0.76%) MDD. The variance explained in the antidepressant-free subset

was slightly lower compared to the full prevalent case-control sample (antidepressant-free

sample: R2 = 1.66%; full sample: R2 = 1.75%); however, there was no evidence that the DNAm-

RS MDD association was significantly attenuated in the antidepressant free incident sub-sample.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 14: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Association of DNAm-RS with lifestyle factors and antidepressant use

DNAm-RS was found to be significantly associated with smoking status (β = 0.440, p =

< 2x10-16, R2 = 3.2%), pack years (β = 0.246, p = < 2x10-16, R2 = 6.5%), alcohol units (β = 0.092,

p = 9.85x10-5, R2 = 0.7%), and self-reported antidepressant use (β = 0.289, p = 0.002, R2 =

1.1%). BMI was not found to be significantly associated with DNAm-RS (β = 0.039, p = 0.099,

R2 = 0.097%) (Supplementary Table 2; Supplementary Figure 2).

Association of DNAm-RS with depression when adjusting for lifestyle factors

DNAm-RS was tested for its association with prevalent and incident depression while

adjusting for BMI, alcohol use, smoking status and pack years to determine if any independent

contribution remained from the DNAm-RS. Table 1 and Figure 3 detail the results. DNAm-RS

was still significantly associated with prevalent MDD status after adjusting for lifestyle factors (β

= 0.219, p = 0.001) but only explained 0.68% of the variance (independent R2 = 1.75%). For

incident depression cases, the DNAm-RS was no longer significantly associated with MDD

status after adjusting for lifestyle factors (variance explained decreased from 0.52% prior to

adjustment to 0.25% after adjustment).

Predictor variables Effect size SD t value

p value R2

Lifestyle factors + DNAm-RS model (P)

BMI 0.259 0.061 4.247 2.16x10-5 1.36%

Smoking status 0.369 0.154 2.395 0.017 2.13%

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 15: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Pack years 0.239 0.074 3.220 0.001 1.003%

Alcohol units 0.08 0.066 1.196 0.232 0.13%

DNAm-RS 0.219 0.067 3.259 0.001 0.68%

Lifestyle factors + DNAm-RS model (I)

BMI 0.138 0.076 1.814 0.07 0.45%

Smoking status 0.629 0.19 3.315 0.0009 1.5%

Pack years -0.0003 0.099 -0.003 0.997 0.005%

Alcohol units -0.109 0.095 -1.155 0.248 0.11%

DNAm-RS 0.136 0.083 1.643 0.1 0.25%

Table 1. Standardised effect size, standard error, t value, and nominal p-value for prevalent (P) and incident (I) MDD for lifestyle factors and DNAm-RS.

Figure 3. Variance explained (R2; y-axis) by lifestyle factors (pink) and lifestyle factors and DNAm-RS (green) in prevalent and incident depression; x-axis labels indicate the independent variables included in the model; I = incidence; P = prevalence.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 16: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Discussion

In the current study we demonstrate that a DNAm-RS explains 1.75% of the variance in

MDD status ascertained at the time of blood draw. The genetic PRS explained 2.40% of the

variance; additively, the PRS and DNAm-RS account for 3.99% of variance explained in total.

Given that MDD PRS scores have been trained on a sample of more than 800K individuals and

the DNAm-RS on only 3,047 individuals, the accuracy and clinical potential of DNAm risk

scores will likely increase as larger sample sizes with methylation data become available. DNAm

risk scores may yet provide clinically-valuable information about the risk of future MDD, albeit

that DNAm scores were more weakly associated with future MDD in individuals who were

unaffected at baseline, than with case-control status ascertained at the same time as DNA was

collected.

In the current study, the MDD DNAm predictor was significantly associated with

smoking status and alcohol consumption, but not with BMI (smoking status: R2 = 3.2%; alcohol

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 17: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

consumption: R2 = 0.7%). After adjustment for BMI or smoking status, the DNAm-RS

association with MDD was substantially attenuated. These lifestyle factors have previously been

associated with MDD (25; 26; 27; 28; 29) and are known to robustly associate with patterns of

DNAm (12). The attenuation of the association between DNAm-RS and MDD likely reveals that

the DNAm based predictor of MDD may be acting as an archive of the effects of these, and

other, lifestyle variables. DNAm-RS was also significantly associated with MDD in a subset of

individuals with no self-reported antidepressant use. In addition, the DNAm-RS was also

significantly associated with self-reported antidepressant use, although this association does not

account for the DNAm-RS MDD associations reported. This finding suggests that DNAm-RS

may also be sensitive to the effects of antidepressant use and that future studies should examine

whether DNAm-RS trained on antidepressant use may be valuable as a measure of

antidepressant absorption or pharmacological action.

The current study, to our knowledge, is the first to investigate a DNAm risk score for

MDD in one of the largest samples of DNAm data to date. Using penalised regression models to

train our DNAm predictor poses several advantages over other approaches, such as modelling all

CpG sites simultaneously or allowing for a non-arbitrary selection of CpG sites, and provided a

set of discriminating CpG sites for use in downstream analyses. Moreover, the use of a single

score instead of thousands of independent loci allows for a more comprehensive analysis

investigating the additive effect of a large number of variants and permits the use of smaller

sample sizes. Finally, we were able to gain insight into a novel association between a DNAm-RS

and depression, over and above genetic and environmental risk arising from lifestyle factors.

In conclusion, our results show that a DNAm risk score is significantly associated with

current and future MDD status, enhancing prediction from polygenic risk scores and

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 18: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

environmental traits. Subsequent to further testing and validation in clinically-ascertained

samples, these findings may have future clinical applications for MDD risk stratification and

justify further efforts to collect DNAm in larger samples.

References

1. Depression WH. Other Common Mental Disorders: Global Health Estimates. Geneva: World

Health Organization. 2017:1-24.

2. Ripke S, Wray NR, Lewis CM, Hamilton SP, Weissman MM, Breen G, Byrne EM,

Blackwood DH, Boomsma DI, Cichon S, Heath AC. A mega-analysis of genome-wide

association studies for major depressive disorder. Molecular psychiatry. 2013 Apr;18(4):497.

3. Wray NR, Ripke S, Mattheisen M, Trzaskowski M, Byrne EM, Abdellaoui A, Adams MJ,

Agerbo E, Air TM, Andlauer TM, Bacanu SA. Genome-wide association analyses identify 44

risk variants and refine the genetic architecture of major depression. Nature genetics. 2018

May;50(5):668.

4. Howard DM, Adams MJ, Clarke TK, Hafferty JD, Gibson J, Shirali M, Coleman JR,

Hagenaars SP, Ward J, Wigmore EM, Alloza C. Genome-wide meta-analysis of depression

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 19: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

identifies 102 independent variants and highlights the importance of the prefrontal brain

regions. Nature neuroscience. 2019 Mar;22(3):343.

5. Zeng Y, Amador C, Xia C, Marioni R, Sproul D, Walker RM, Morris SW, Bretherick A,

Canela-Xandri O, Boutin TS, Clark DW. Parent of origin genetic effects on methylation in

humans are common and influence complex trait variation. Nature communications. 2019

Mar 27;10(1):1383.

6. Jovanova OS, Nedeljkovic I, Spieler D, Walker RM, Liu C, Luciano M, Bressler J, Brody J,

Drake AJ, Evans KL, Gondalia R. DNA methylation signatures of depressive symptoms in

Middle-aged and elderly persons: meta-analysis of multiethnic Epigenome-wide studies.

JAMA psychiatry. 2018 Sep 1;75(9):949-59.

7. Roberson-Nay R, Wolen AR, Lapato DM, Lancaster EE, Webb BT, Verhulst B, Hettema JM,

York TP. Twin Study of Early-Onset Major Depression Finds DNA Methylation Enrichment

for Neurodevelopmental Genes. bioRxiv. 2018 Jan 1:422345.

8. Joehanes R, Just AC, Marioni RE, Pilling LC, Reynolds LM, Mandaviya PR, Guan W, Xu T,

Elks CE, Aslibekyan S, Moreno-Macias H. Epigenetic signatures of cigarette smoking.

Circulation: cardiovascular genetics. 2016 Oct;9(5):436-47.

9. Wahl S, Drong A, Lehne B, Loh M, Scott WR, Kunze S, Tsai PC, Ried JS, Zhang W, Yang

Y, Tan S. Epigenome-wide association study of body mass index, and the adverse outcomes

of adiposity. Nature. 2017 Jan;541(7635):81.

10. Mendelson MM, Marioni RE, Joehanes R, Liu C, Hedman ÅK, Aslibekyan S, Demerath

EW, Guan W, Zhi D, Yao C, Huan T. Association of body mass index with DNA methylation

and gene expression in blood cells and relations to cardiometabolic disease: a Mendelian

randomization approach. PLoS medicine. 2017 Jan 17;14(1):e1002215.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 20: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

11. Liu C, Marioni RE, Hedman ÅK, Pfeiffer L, Tsai PC, Reynolds LM, Just AC, Duan Q,

Boer CG, Tanaka T, Elks CE. A DNA methylation biomarker of alcohol consumption.

Molecular psychiatry. 2018 Feb;23(2):422.

12. McCartney DL, Hillary RF, Stevenson AJ, Ritchie SJ, Walker RM, Zhang Q, Morris SW,

Bermingham ML, Campbell A, Murray AD, Whalley HC. Epigenetic prediction of complex

traits and death. Genome biology. 2018 Dec;19(1):136.

13. Smith BH, Campbell H, Blackwood D, Connell J, Connor M, Deary IJ, Dominiczak AF,

Fitzpatrick B, Ford I, Jackson C, Haddow G. Generation Scotland: the Scottish Family Health

Study; a new resource for researching genes and heritability. BMC medical genetics. 2006

Dec;7(1):74.

14. Smith BH, Campbell A, Linksted P, Fitzpatrick B, Jackson C, Kerr SM, Deary IJ,

MacIntyre DJ, Campbell H, McGilchrist M, Hocking LJ. Cohort Profile: Generation Scotland:

Scottish Family Health Study (GS: SFHS). The study, its participants and their potential for

genetic research on health and illness. International journal of epidemiology. 2013 Jul

10;42(3):689-700.

15. Navrady LB, Wolters MK, MacIntyre DJ, Clarke TK, Campbell AI, Murray AD, Evans

KL, Seckl J, Haley C, Milburn K, Wardlaw JM. Cohort profile: stratifying resilience and

depression longitudinally (STRADL): a questionnaire follow-up of Generation Scotland:

Scottish Family Health Study (GS: SFHS). International journal of epidemiology. 2017 Jul

18;47(1):13-4g.

16. Leffondré K, Abrahamowicz M, Siemiatycki J, Rachet B. Modeling smoking history: a

comparison of different approaches. American journal of epidemiology. 2002 Nov

1;156(9):813-23.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 21: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

17. Hafferty JD, Campbell AI, Navrady LB, Adams MJ, MacIntyre D, Lawrie SM,

Nicodemus K, Porteous DJ, McIntosh AM. Self-reported medication use validated through

record linkage to national prescribing data. Journal of clinical epidemiology. 2018 Feb

1;94:132-42.

18. Fortin JP, Fertig E, Hansen K. shinyMethyl: interactive quality control of Illumina 450k

DNA methylation arrays in R. F1000Research. 2014;3.

19. Pidsley R, Wong CC, Volta M, Lunnon K, Mill J, Schalkwyk LC. A data-driven

approach to preprocessing Illumina 450K methylation array data. BMC genomics. 2013

Dec;14(1):293.

20. Du P, Kibbe WA, Lin SM. lumi: a pipeline for processing Illumina microarray.

Bioinformatics. 2008 May 8;24(13):1547-8.

21. Canela-Xandri O, Law A, Gray A, Woolliams JA, Tenesa A. A new tool called

DISSECT for analysing large genomic data sets using a Big Data approach. Nature

communications. 2015 Dec 11;6:10162.

22. Min JL, Hemani G, Davey Smith G, Relton C, Suderman M. Meffil: efficient

normalization and analysis of very large DNA methylation datasets. Bioinformatics. 2018 Jun

21;34(23):3983-9.

23. Nagy R, Boutin TS, Marten J, Huffman JE, Kerr SM, Campbell A, Evenden L, Gibson J,

Amador C, Howard DM, Navarro P. Exploration of haplotype research consortium imputation

for genome-wide association studies in 20,032 Generation Scotland participants. Genome

medicine. 2017 Dec;9(1):23.

24. Chang CC, Chow CC, Tellier LC, Vattikuti S, Purcell SM, Lee JJ. Second-generation

PLINK: rising to the challenge of larger and richer datasets. Gigascience. 2015 Dec;4(1):7.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 22: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

25. Paperwalla KN, Levin TT, Weiner J, Saravay SM. Smoking and depression. The Medical

Clinics of North America. 2004 Nov;88(6):1483-94.

26. De Wit L, Luppino F, van Straten A, Penninx B, Zitman F, Cuijpers P. Depression and

obesity: a meta-analysis of community-based studies. Psychiatry research. 2010 Jul

30;178(2):230-5.

27. Brière FN, Rohde P, Seeley JR, Klein D, Lewinsohn PM. Comorbidity between major

depression and alcohol use disorder from adolescence to adulthood. Comprehensive

psychiatry. 2014 Apr 1;55(3):526-33.

28. Opel N, Redlich R, Grotegerd D, Dohm K, Heindel W, Kugel H, Arolt V, Dannlowski U.

Obesity and major depression: body-mass index (BMI) is associated with a severe course of

disease and specific neurostructural alterations. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2015 Jan

1;51:219-26.

29. Pedrelli P, Shapero B, Archibald A, Dale C. Alcohol use and depression during

adolescence and young adulthood: a summary and interpretation of mixed findings. Current

addiction reports. 2016 Mar 1;3(1):91-7.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 23: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Supplementary materials

Baseline MDD in GS:SFHS

SCID was administered to participants who answered “yes” to either of the following

screening questions: “Have you ever seen anybody for emotional or psychiatric problems?” and

“Was there ever a time when you, or someone else, thought you should see someone because of

the way you were feeling or acting?” Answers from the SCID were used to ascertain MDD case

status.

Antidepressant use measurement in GS:SFHS

A self-report measure of antidepressant use was recorded by participants in two different

ways: within the first phase of the study, a text-based questionnaire was used to record type of

antidepressant taken; participants recruited between June 2009 and March 2011 completed a

questionnaire recording medication use through a “yes/no” checkbox, with an accompanying

question: “Are you regularly taking any of the following medications?”, of which one of the

answers was “Antidepressants” .

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 24: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

In the prevalent cases and controls, 108 affected individuals reported they take an

antidepressant, whereas 198 reported no antidepressant use; in the incident cases and controls, 20

individuals reported taking an antidepressant, and 143 reported no antidepressant use; 1,052

healthy individuals reported not taking an antidepressant, and 27 report antidepressant use.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 25: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Supplementary Figure 1. Flowchart indicating analysis process.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 26: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Statistic IV: DNAm IV: PRS IV: PRS + DNAm

Effect size, β

DNAm 0.338 - 0.327

PRS - 0.397 0.384

SD

DNAm 0.064 - 0.065

PRS - 0.065 0.066

t value

DNAm 5.289 - 5.002

PRS - 6.107 5.858

Nominal p value

DNAm 1.17x10-7 - 5.66x10-7

PRS - 1.02x10-9 4.69x10-9

R2 1.75% 2.40% 3.99%

Supplementary Table 1. Standardised effect size, standard error, t value, nominal p-value, and R2 for DNAm, PRS, and PRS + DNAm; IV = independent variable included in the model.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 27: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Lifestyle factor Effect size SD t value p value R2

BMI 0.039 0.023 1.653 0.099 0.097%

Smoking status 0.440 0.051 8.598 < 2x10-16 3.2%

Pack years 0.246 0.022 11.197 < 2x10-16 6.5%

Alcohol units 0.092 0.024 3.903 9.85x10-5 0.7%

Self-report antidepressant use

(N = 1385)

0.289 0.091 3.165 0.002 1.1%

Supplementary Table 2. Standardised effect size, standard error, t value, nominal p-value and R2 for lifestyle factors explained by DNAm in prevalent cases and controls (N = 1,780) and self-report antidepressant use (N = 1,385).

Supplementary Figure 2. DNAm prediction (R2) of lifestyle factors, and prevalent cases & controls (N = 1,780), and self-report antidepressant use (N = 1385).

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint

Page 28: Epigenetic prediction of major depressive disorder · An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of 7,948 European individuals identified 3 CpG sites that were differentially methylated

Predictor variables Effect size SD t value p value R2

Lifestyle factors + DNAm model (P)

BMI 0.197 0.077 2.553 0.011 1.62%

Smoking status 0.342 0.189 1.807 0.071 2.02%

Pack years 0.111 0.953 1.166 0.244 0.62%

Alcohol units 0.124 0.079 1.566 0.117 0.11%

Self-reported antidepressant use 3.127 0.251 12.454 < 2x10-16 16.08%

DNAm 0.236 0.082 2.858 0.004 0.77%

Lifestyle factors + DNAm model (I)

BMI 0.145 0.086 1.682 0.093 0.704%

Smoking status 0.624 0.211 2.963 0.003 1.66%

Pack years -0.034 0.108 -0.313 0.754 0.001%

Alcohol units -0.096 0.101 -0.943 0.345 0.06%

Self-reported antidepressant use 1.603 0.33 4.857 1.19x10-6 2.304%

DNAm 0.143 0.092 1.549 0.121 0.27%

Supplementary Table 3. Standardised effect size, standard error, t value, and nominal p-value for depression explained by lifestyle factors, self-reported antidepressant use, and DNAm in prevalent (P; N = 1,385) and incident (I; N = 1,242) cases and controls; *sample size is lower than in the main manuscript due to self-reported antidepressant use variable.

. CC-BY 4.0 International licenseIt is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. certified by peer review)

(which was notThe copyright holder for this preprint this version posted June 28, 2019. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/19001123doi: medRxiv preprint


Recommended