B3118 - Genome-wide association study of anxiety and depression - 24/05/2018

B number: 
B3118
Principal applicant name: 
Nicholas Timpson | ALSPAC/IEU
Co-applicants: 
Mr Alex Kwong, Professor Cathryn Lewis, Dr John Hettema
Title of project: 
Genome-wide association study of anxiety and depression
Proposal summary: 

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been instrumental in highlighting associations between genetic variants and 1000s of traits. A recent GWAS of major depressive disorder (MDD) by the psychiatric genetics consortium (PGC) has recently identified 44 genetic variants associated with the disorder (Wray et al., 2018). We plan to include ALSPAC data from the mothers and the children in the next round of analysis for both forthcoming MDD and anxiety PGC GWAS. We will prepare summary statistics from the GWAS to be shared with the PGC and perform subsequent in cohort analysis. This will be a big step towards incorporating ALSPAC data into psychiatric genetics. The summary statistics will contain no identifiable information.

Impact of research: 
These will be the largest GWAS on both MDD and anxiety disorders
Date proposal received: 
Wednesday, 23 May, 2018
Keywords: 
Genetic epidemiology (including association studies and mendelian randomisation), Mental health, GWAS, Genome wide association study