RICHMOND, Va. -- For the first time in scientific history, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and international partners have identified specific genetic clues to the underlying cause of clinical depression.
The study, “Sparse Whole-Genome Sequencing Identifies Two Loci for Major Depressive Disorder,” was published as an advanced online publication in the journal Nature on July 15.
Through the research, the team successfully isolated individual changes in DNA that increase risk for major depression. The findings provide the potential to be able to assess people's genetic vulnerability for inheriting the disease.
“This report shows for the first time that genome-wide association studies – a method that has found risk genes from many important complex human disorders – can work for major depression,” said joint-senior author Kenneth S. Kendler, M.D., professor of psychiatry and human and molecular genetics at VCU School of Medicine. “With these genome-wide studies, as you identify more markers your ability to identify specific biological pathways to illness substantially improves.”
Courtesy: VCU Public Affairs
According to the World Health Organization, clinical depression carries the second heaviest burden of disability among all medical conditions worldwide. The findings from this study could potential lead to new ways to predict risk for depression and treatments for the disease.
“Each one of these molecular genetic findings opens a potential biological pathway that could lead to the development of new treatments, which have not yet been conceived because of our lack of understanding of the biology of the disease,” Kendler said.
Kendler attributes the research’s success to the carefully designed study sample, which consisted of 5,303 Chinese women with recurrent major depression from 58 hospitals throughout China and 5,337 Chinese women in the control group. The study was limited to women because about 45 percent of the genetic liability to major depressive disorder is not shared between sexes.
The women with depression in the study had to be at least 30 years old; have had two episodes of major depression; have no history of alcohol or drug abuse, bipolar illness, or psychosis; and have had all four grandparents of Han Chinese descent.
