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  • Investigating Causality Bet...
    Carvalho, Carolina Muniz; Wendt, Frank R.; Stein, Dan J.; Stein, Murray B.; Gelernter, Joel; Belangero, Sintia I.; Polimanti, Renato

    Molecular neurobiology, 03/2020, Volume: 57, Issue: 3
    Journal Article

    To investigate the causal relationship between blood metabolites and traits related to trauma-response, we combined genome-wide and metabolome-wide datasets generated from large-scale cohorts. Five trauma-response traits ascertained in the UK Biobank (52,816 < N < 117,900 individuals) were considered: (i) “Avoided activities/situations because of previous stressful experience” ( Avoidance ); (ii) “Felt distant from other people” ( Distant ); (iii) “Felt irritable/had angry outbursts” ( Irritable ); (iv) “Felt very upset when reminded of stressful experience” ( Upset ); (v) “Repeated disturbing thoughts of stressful experience”. These were investigated with respect to 52 blood metabolites tested in a previous genome-wide-association study ( N = 24,925 European-ancestry individuals). Linkage disequilibrium score regression, polygenic risk scoring (PRS), and Mendelian randomization were applied to the datasets. We observed that 14 metabolites were genetically correlated with trauma-response traits ( p < 0.05). High-resolution PRS of 4 metabolites (citrate; glycoprotein acetyls; concentration of large very-low-density lipoproteins (VLDL) particles (LVLDLP); total cholesterol in medium particles of VLDL (MVLDLC)) were associated with trauma-response traits (false discovery rate Q < 10%). These genetic associations were partially due to causal relationships (Citrate→Upset β = − 0.058, p = 9.1 × 10 -4 ; Glycoproteins→Avoidance β = 0.008, p = 0.003; LVLDLP→Distant β = 0.008, p = 0.022; MVLDLC→Avoidance β = 0.019, p = 3 × 10 -4 ). No reverse associations were observed. In conclusion, our study supports causal relationships between certain blood metabolites and emotional and behavioral responses to traumatic experiences.