Summary: A large-scale biological study involving over 1 million participants has uncovered more than 100 genes associated with anxiety. These genes are also linked to other mental and physical health problems, such as sadness and digestive problems, according to researchers ‘ findings.
The research emphasizes the value of learning about the genetic basis of stress in order to create more potent solutions. Also, it emphasizes the need for various genetic studies to reveal ancestry-specific danger factors.
Important Facts:
- Over 100 chromosomes linked to stress were identified in a large-scale research.
- Anxiety-associated genes are even tied to depression, psychosis, and physical health problems.
- For understanding various risk factors, cross-ancestry genomic studies are important.
Origin: Yale
More than 1 million members in various groups around the world were studied by researchers from Yale’s Department of Psychiatry. Leveraging this huge data, they uncovered more than 100 genes associated with anxiety.
The findings  , were published in , Nature Genetics.
Some people experience anxiety diseases and ailments that have a negative effect on people’s quality of life. Understanding their , biological predisposition , can have significant repercussions for developing more effective therapies and treatments to minimize depression’s harmful effects.
” This work highlights the power of large-scale , genetic studies , to examine the complex etiology of panic demonstrating how multiple genes acting on different mental features contribute to defining personal biological risk”, said Renato Polimanti, Ph. D., top author of the study and associate professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine.
These findings “open new avenues for understanding the molecular basis of pathology” and “examine the mechanisms underlying the comorbidity between anxiety and other undesirable health results” say the authors.
Integrating genetic data with other molecular features, the researchers understood how chromosomes may work on different mental institutions to increase the risk of developing , stress disorders , and ailments.
They furthermore observed that some anxiety-associated chromosomes can also lead to other , psychological symptoms, including depression, psychosis, and , depressive disorder.
The study also demonstrated that stress biological hazard is also related to non-psychiatric conditions in line with the correlation between physical health and stress. In specific, the strongest proof was observed with digestive problems and pain-related results.
Eleni Friligkou, MD, a psychology resident in the Neuroscience Research Training Program and the study’s first artist, said,” We were able to discover the genetic structures of anxiety disorders with more energy for genetic relationship” by studying the genetic structures of the disorder across five different haplogroups for the first time.
” Our effort draws attention to the need to increase diversity in genetic studies to better understand ancestry-specific correlates of anxiety disorders, as well as to leverage the potential of cross-ancestry genetic discovery,” says the group.
About this information on genetics and research.
Author: Renato Polimanti
Source: Yale
Contact: Renato Polimanti – Yale
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Closed access.
Renato Polimanti and colleagues ‘” Gene discovery and biological insights into anxiety disorders from a large-scale multi-ancestry genome-wide association study.” Nature Genetics
Abstract
An extensive multi-ancestry genome-wide association study revealed gene discovery and biological insights into anxiety disorders.
We leveraged information from more than 1.2 million participants, including 97, 383 cases, to investigate the genetics of anxiety disorders across five continental groups.
Through ancestry-specific and cross-ancestry genome-wide association studies, we identified 51 anxiety-associated loci, 39 of which were novel. Additionally, anxiety was linked to polygenic risk scores obtained from people of European descent in the admixed American and East Asian groups.
The heritability of anxiety was enriched for genes expressed in the limbic system, cerebral cortex, cerebellum, metencephalon, entorhinal cortex and brain stem. Transcriptome-wide and proteome-wide analyses highlighted 115 genes associated with anxiety through brain-specific and cross-tissue regulation.
Anxiety also revealed widespread pleiotropy and a number of physical health domains, as well as global and local genetic correlations with depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.
Overall, this study expands our understanding of the genetic basis for anxiety disorders and the importance of examining diverse populations and incorporating multi-omics data.
