Abstract
Major depressive disorder is a common debilitating disorder that is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. However, the molecular mechanism underlying depression remains largely unknown. The current study investigated the association of depression with blood gene expression using data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). Depression was measured by the geriatric depression scale, and the blood gene expression was measured by the Affymetrix Human Genome U219 Array. Linear regression was used to test the association between gene expression and depression, and the model was adjusted for age and sex. A total of 671 participants were included in our study (mean age 75 ± 8 years, 43.2% women). We found three genes were associated with depression, including COL1A2 (P = 8.9 × 10−8), RNF150 (P = 1.4 × 10−7) and CTGF (P = 8.3 × 10−7). An interaction network was built, and the pathway analysis indicated that many depression-related genes were involved in the neurotrophin signaling pathway (P = 2.1 × 10−7). Future studies are necessary to validate our findings and further investigate potential mechanism of depression.
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Acknowledgements
This project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81673977 and 81673863), the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission of China (Grant No: 18511107700), and the Shanghai High-level University Development Project. It was also supported by the Boston University Digital Health Initiative, Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Center Pilot Grant, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through BU-CTSI Grant Number 1UL1TR001430. The views expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Institutes of Health or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Data collection and sharing for this project was funded by the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) (National Institutes of Health Grant U01 AG024904) and DOD ADNI (Department of Defense award number W81XWH-12-2-0012). ADNI is funded by the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and through generous contributions from the following: AbbVie, Alzheimer’s Association; Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation; Araclon Biotech; BioClinica, Inc.; Biogen; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; CereSpir, Inc.; Cogstate; Eisai Inc.; Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Eli Lilly and Company; EuroImmun; F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd and its affiliated company Genentech, Inc.; Fujirebio; GE Healthcare; IXICO Ltd.; Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy Research & Development, LLC.; Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development LLC.; Lumosity; Lundbeck; Merck & Co., Inc.; Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC.; NeuroRx Research; Neurotrack Technologies; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation; Pfizer Inc.; Piramal Imaging; Servier; Takeda Pharmaceutical Company; and Transition Therapeutics. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is providing funds to support ADNI clinical sites in Canada. Private sector contributions are facilitated by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (http://www.fnih.org). The grantee organization is the Northern California Institute for Research and Education, and the study is coordinated by the Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute at the University of Southern California. ADNI data are disseminated by the Laboratory for Neuro Imaging at the University of Southern California.
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XM and HL initiated the study and drafted the manuscript. BF, RL, SZ and BZ performed the analyses and critically reviewed the manuscript. All authors approve the final version of the manuscript.
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Data used in preparation of this article were obtained from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database (adni.loni.usc.edu). As such, the investigators within the ADNI contributed to the design and implementation of ADNI and/or provided data but did not participate in analysis or writing of this report. A complete listing of ADNI investigators can be found at http://adni.loni.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/how_to_apply/ADNI_Acknowledgement_List.pdf.
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Miao, X., Fan, B., Li, R. et al. Network Analysis of Depression-Related Transcriptomic Profiles. Neuromol Med 21, 143–149 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12017-019-08527-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12017-019-08527-9