Thread by @Used_For_Glue

1/ Here it is, the culmination of many hours of research - our published paper describing a genetic analysis of depression using data from over 2 million people.
nature.com/articles/s4159…

2/ We firstly analysed DNA data from 800,000 people from @uk_biobank, @23andMeResearch and @PGCgenetics and identified 102 independent variants associated with #depression.

3/ In an independent replication dataset of 1.3 million people, all of the 102 depression variants had an effect in the same direction, 87 were significant after applying Bonferroni correction and 56 passed the threshold for genome-wide significance.

4/ We provide further evidence that our risk for #depression is partly inherited, with a heritability estimate of 9%.
We found that this genetic component was enrichment in the central nervous system and frontal #brain regions.
nature.com/articles/s4159…

5/ #Depression had shared a genetic component with around 40 other traits, including bipolar disorder, #schizophrenia, insomnia, #obesity, IBD and Crohn's disease.

6/ Using Mendelian randomization, we found that #neuroticism was causal for depression and #depression was causal for taking up #smoking.
nature.com/articles/s4159…

7/ We found 269 genes that had an effect on depression and identified enrichment for 15 gene-sets. These gene-sets related to either synaptic structure and activity or the response to stimuli.

8/ Of the genes for depression, 37 are known to interacted with 54 different drug classes. The greatest number of interactions was between the dopamine receptor D2 (DRD2) gene and the N05 drug class which contains antipsychotics, anxiolytics and sedatives.

9/ Here is a video of me talking about this research in more depth for @PGCgenetics

10/ An #openaccess preprint version of the manuscript is available here: doi.org/10.1101/433367

11/ Here is some coverage on the BBC:
bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-sc…

12/ Article by @rjmsci published by @Tech_Networks: technologynetworks.com/tn/news/neurot…

13/ International coverage of our research in the Brisbane Times
brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queen…