F10. TRACES OF ASSORTATIVE MATING FOR MENTAL DISORDERS IN THE HUMAN GENOME

• Published in: European neuropsychopharmacology Vol. 87; p. 210
• Main Authors: Dehkordi, Saeid Rasekhi, Waples, Ryan Kele, Werge, Thomas, Demur, Alfonso Buil
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01-10-2024
• ISSN: 0924-977X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.euroneuro.2024.08.421

Assortative mating (AM), the tendency for individuals to mate with partners who have similar phenotypes, is a well-documented phenomenon in humans, affecting a wide range of traits including mental disorders, socio-economic status, and physical characteristics. This non-random mating pattern can lead to several genetic consequences: an increase in genetic variance, greater similarity among relatives, and deviations from Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) characterized by increased homozygosity at causal loci. Additionally, there is a directional correlation between trait-increasing alleles, with studies showing a positive correlation even between physically distinct loci. In this work, we aim to find traces of AM from mental disorders in the human genome.
Our study utilized data from the iPSYCH 2012 and iPSYCH 2015 cohorts, comprising approximately 140,000 genotyped samples. We employed two primary approaches to investigate the impact of AM on genetic architecture: a) we compared homozygosity rates between trait-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with mental disorders and random SNPs, controlling for factors such as minor allele frequency (MAF), linkage disequilibrium (LD) score, distance to the nearest gene, and gene abundance; and b) we examined the correlation between physically distinct loci by analyzing the polygenic risk scores (PRS) across different chromosomes.
Our preliminary analysis did not show significant changes in the homozygosity of trait-associated alleles for major mental disorders. We are conducting further analysis to identify the effect of AM on mental disorders.
Assortative mating can significantly modify the genomic architecture of trait-associated loci. Our research will enhance our understanding of the genetic consequences of assortative mating on the genetic architecture of mental disorders.