2024/09/20 by Markos Tesfaye, Piotr Jahołkowski, Alexey Shadrin +15 · 1 voice
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Medicine · Neuroscience · #Genetic Associations and Epidemiology #Schizophrenia research and treatment #Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
paper · doi:10.1111/pcn.13742
openalex publication_date 2024/09/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
Aims Anxiety disorders are prevalent and anxiety symptoms (ANX) co‐occur with many psychiatric disorders. We aimed to identify genomic loci associated with ANX, characterize its genetic architecture, and genetic overlap with psychiatric disorders. Methods We included a genome‐wide association study of ANX (meta‐analysis of UK Biobank and Million Veterans Program, n = 301,732), schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder (BIP), major depression (MD), attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and validated the findings in the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort ( n = 95,841). We employed the bivariate causal mixture model and local analysis of covariant association to characterize the genetic architecture including overlap between the phenotypes. Conditional and conjunctional false discovery rate analyses were performed to boost the identification of loci associated with anxiety and shared with psychiatric disorders. Results Anxiety was polygenic with 12.9k genetic variants and overlapped extensively with psychiatric disorders (4.1k–11.4k variants) with predominantly positive genetic correlations between anxiety and psychiatric disorders. We identified 119 novel loci for anxiety by conditioning on the psychiatric disorders, and loci shared between anxiety and MD , BIP , SCZ , ADHD , and ASD . Genes annotated to anxiety loci exhibit enrichment for a broader range of biological pathways including cell adhesion and neurofibrillary tangle compared with genes annotated to the shared loci. Conclusions Anxiety is highly polygenic phenotype with extensive genetic overlap with psychiatric disorders, and we identified novel loci for anxiety implicating new molecular pathways. The shared genetic architecture may underlie the extensive cross‐disorder comorbidity of anxiety, and the identified molecular underpinnings may lead to potential drug targets.