Cited by 506Genetic Associations and EpidemiologySchizophrenia research and treatmentGenetic Mapping and Diversity in Plants and Animals

Improved Detection of Common Variants Associated with Schizophrenia by Leveraging Pleiotropy with Cardiovascular-Disease Risk Factors

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Andreassen, Ole A., Djurovic, Srdjan, Thompson, Wesley K., Schork, Andrew J., Kendler, Kenneth S., O’Donovan, Michael C., Rujescu, Dan, Werge, Thomas +7 more·2013·The American Journal of Human Genetics

Abstract

Several lines of evidence suggest that genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have the potential to explain more of the "missing heritability" of common complex phenotypes. However, reliable methods for identifying a larger proportion of SNPs are currently lacking. Here, we present a genetic-pleiotropy-informed method for improving gene discovery with the use of GWAS summary-statistics data. We applied this methodology to identify additional loci associated with schizophrenia (SCZ), a highly heritable disorder with significant missing heritability. Epidemiological and clinical studies suggest comorbidity between SCZ and cardiovascular-disease (CVD) risk factors, including systolic blood pressure, triglycerides, low- and high-density lipoprotein, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, and type 2 diabetes. Using stratified quantile-quantile plots, we show enrichment of SNPs associated with SCZ as a function of the association with several CVD risk factors and a corresponding reduction in false discovery rate (FDR). We validate this "pleiotropic enrichment" by demonstrating increased replication rate across independent SCZ substudies. Applying the stratified FDR method, we identified 25 loci associated with SCZ at a conditional FDR level of 0.01. Of these, ten loci are associated with both SCZ and CVD risk factors, mainly triglycerides and low- and high-density lipoproteins but also waist-to-hip ratio, systolic blood pressure, and body mass index. Together, these findings suggest the feasibility of using genetic-pleiotropy-informed methods for improving gene discovery in SCZ and identifying potential mechanistic relationships with various CVD risk factors.

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Authors
Andreassen, O. A., Djurovic, S., Thompson, W. K., Schork, A. J., Kendler, K. S., O’Donovan, M. C., Rujescu, D., Werge, T., van de Bunt, M., Morris, A. P., McCarthy, M. I., Roddey, J. C., McEvoy, L. K., Desikan, R. S., & Dale, A. M.
Affiliations
  • Oslo University Hospital (NO)
  • University of California San Diego (US)
  • Virginia Commonwealth University (US)
  • Cardiff University (GB)
  • Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (DE)
  • University of Copenhagen (DK)
  • Centre for Human Genetics (GB)
Corresponding author
  • Andreassen, Ole A.
  • Dale, Anders M.
Venue
The American Journal of Human Genetics
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2013-02
Volume
92
Issue
2
Pages
197-209
ISSN
0002-9297 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2072408668
Cited by
506
References
53
Citations by year
2026: 24 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 46 · 2022: 46 · 2021: 51 · 2020: 40 · 2019: 36 · 2018: 31 · 2017: 39 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 42 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 19
FWCI
24.93
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • The American Journal of Human Genetics (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Pure Amsterdam UMC (publishedVersion)
  • Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (publishedVersion)
  • VU Research Portal (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
  • Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (submittedVersion)
  • Lirias (submittedVersion)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
  • Stiftelsen Kristian Gerhard Jebsen
  • Wellcome Trust (098017, 090532)
  • Norges Forskningsråd
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Institute on Aging (R01AG031224)
  • National Institute on Drug Abuse (RC2DA029475)
  • National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (R01EB000790, T32EB005970)
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD061414)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Mapping and Diversity in Plants and Animals
Keywords
schizophrenia, common genetic variants, missing heritability, pleiotropy, cardiovascular risk factors, triglycerides, lipoproteins, systolic blood pressure, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, type 2 diabetes, gene discovery, replication
MeSH terms
Cardiovascular Diseases, Humans, Phenotype, Risk Factors, Schizophrenia, Reproducibility of Results, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genetic Loci, Genetic Pleiotropy

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