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Hair Cortisol in Twins: Heritability and Genetic Overlap with Psychological Variables and Stress-System Genes

Rietschel L 1 , Streit F 2 , Zhu G 3 , McAloney K 3 , Frank J 2 , Couvy-Duchesne B 3 Show all authors , Witt SH 2 , Binz TM 4 , CORtisolNETwork (CORNET) Consortium , Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) , McGrath J 5 , Hickie IB 6 , Hansell NK 5 , Wright MJ 5 , Gillespie NA 3 , Forstner AJ 7 , Schulze TG 2 , Wüst S 2 , Nöthen MM 7 , Baumgartner MR 4 , Walker BR 8 , Crawford AA 8 , Colodro-Conde L 3 , Medland SE 3 , Martin NG 3 , Rietschel M 2

Affiliations 

  • 1 University Hospital of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Research Department, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. Liz.Rietschel@srh.de
  • 2 Department of Genetic Epidemiology in Psychiatry, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany
  • 3 Genetics & Computational Biology Department, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia
  • 4 Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine, Centre for Forensic Hair Analysis, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 5 Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
  • 6 Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
  • 7 Institute of Human Genetics, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
  • 8 British Heart Foundation Centre for Cardiovascular Science, Queen's Medical Research Institute, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Sci Rep, 2017 Nov 10;7(1):15351.
PMID: 29127340 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-11852-3

Abstract

Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) is a promising measure of long-term hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity. Previous research has suggested an association between HCC and psychological variables, and initial studies of inter-individual variance in HCC have implicated genetic factors. However, whether HCC and psychological variables share genetic risk factors remains unclear. The aims of the present twin study were to: (i) assess the heritability of HCC; (ii) estimate the phenotypic and genetic correlation between HPA axis activity and the psychological variables perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and neuroticism; using formal genetic twin models and molecular genetic methods, i.e. polygenic risk scores (PRS). HCC was measured in 671 adolescents and young adults. These included 115 monozygotic and 183 dizygotic twin-pairs. For 432 subjects PRS scores for plasma cortisol, major depression, and neuroticism were calculated using data from large genome wide association studies. The twin model revealed a heritability for HCC of 72%. No significant phenotypic or genetic correlation was found between HCC and the three psychological variables of interest. PRS did not explain variance in HCC. The present data suggest that HCC is highly heritable. However, the data do not support a strong biological link between HCC and any of the investigated psychological variables.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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