METHYLOME-WIDE ASSOCIATION STUDIES FOR MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER IN BLOOD OVERLAP WITH METHYLATION RESULTS FROM BRAIN AND LARGE-SCALE GWAS

Background Epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation provide stability and diversity to the cellular phenotype and aberrant methylation has been implicated in processes underlying psychiatric disorders. Therefore, studies combining DNA methylation and genotype information provide a promising approach to study disorders where genotype information alone has failed to reveal the full etiology. Methods We applied an optimized MBD-seq protocol to assay the complete CpG methylome in cases with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and controls using blood samples (N=1,132) from Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety and brain samples (N=64) from the Victorian Brain Bank Network. Data were analyzed with RaMWAS, a novel Bioconductor package specifically designed for Methylome-Wide Association Studies (MWAS). To study the overlap between top MWAS findings in blood and brain, we used a permutation based enrichment test (shiftR) that accounted for the dependency between adjacent CpG sites. Furthermore, we utilized the methylation data in combination with existing genotype information from the same individuals in a MWAS of CpGs created or destroyed by SNPs. Next, we tested whether top results from this CpG-SNP MWAS overlapped with recent large-scale GWAS to identify robust associations with genomic loci of importance for MDD etiology. Results The MWAS in blood identified five methylome-wide significant sites (P Discussion This work involves the largest MWAS for MDD performed to date. Our integrated analysis with brain tissue, genotype information and GWAS results highlighted biological functions of potential value for MDD etiology. Part of the associated methylation marks in blood overlapped with MWAS finding in brain. As blood can easily be collected in a clinical setting, these loci may be of direct value as potential diagnostic biomarkers for MDD.