PhD Scientific Days 2022

Mental Health Sciences III.

Association of Omega 3 Fatty Acid Consumption and Depression on Multiple Levels of Genetic Hierarchy

Előadó neve

Nagy, Tamás, MSc

Előadó munkahelye

Department of Pharmacodynamics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Semmelweis University; Department of Measurement and Information Systems, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Budapest University of

Előadó telefonszáma

+36202729066

Előadó e-mail címe

nagy.tamas96@phd.semmelweis.hu

Az előadás címe

Association of Omega 3 Fatty Acid Consumption and Depression on Multiple Levels of Genetic Hierarchy

Szerző(k) neve és munkahelye

Tamás Nagy1,2, Gábor Hullám2, Péter Antal2, Gabriella Juhász1,3

1 Department of Pharmacodynamics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Semmelweis University, Budapest
2 Department of Measurement and Information Systems, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest
3 SE-NAP2 Genetic Brain Imaging Migraine Research Group, Hungarian Brain Research Program, Semmelweis University, Budapest

Bemutatás módja

Szóbeli

Szekció

Mental Health Sciences III.

Language of the presentation

English

Preferred session

Mental Sciences

Összefoglaló szövege

Introduction
Various studies indicate that high proportion of omega 3 fatty acid consumption provides anti-inflammatory effects, thus it may be considered to aid the treatment of certain diseases. Major depressive disorder (MDD) is linked with mild, chronic inflammation, consequently, the consumption of omega 3 fatty acids may alleviate the symptoms or prevent the formation of MDD. Certain cytokines, such as interleukin 1 beta (IL-1b), interleukin 6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFa) are linked with the initiation of inflammation in the brain, thus our aim was to analyze the genetic background of these genes in different dietary groups.

Methods
From the UK Biobank cohort, we separated people into two groups based on the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids (OMEGA) (low: 40590; high: 30217 participants). We performed a GWAS on SNP-level with BOLT-LMM, a linear mixed-model-based association testing tool.
Furthermore, we used an implementation of the set-based variance component test (set-test method) to aggregate the effects on gene and gene-set levels. The gene-level aggregation sets were defined based on genomic position and with the use of transcriptomic databases (GeneHancer, eQTL, rSNP). These gene definitions were propagated into a gene-set, resulting in a union of SNPs of the discussed cytokines.

Results
For SNP-level results, we defined a p < 0.01 threshold. In the case of IL-1b we found one significant SNP in each OMEGA group; IL-6 had 7 significant SNPs in the low OMEGA group; TNFa had 1 hit in the high OMEGA group.
On gene level, IL-6’s association was stronger in the low OMEGA group (p=0.08 vs 0.67) and on the gene-set level, the p-value was 0.14 for the low, and 0.84 for the high OMEGA group.

Conclusion
Based on our results, omega 3 fatty acid consumption may modulate the effects of genetic variation related to the discussed pro-inflammatory cytokines, with respect to MDD. On higher hierarchical levels, our method lacked statistical power, which could be due to the small effect size of omega 3, distributed along multiple biological processes. Therefore, further research is required to investigate the effects of omega 3 fatty acid consumption, for which larger-scale and evidence-based gene-sets could serve as the starting points.

Funding
ÚNKP-21-3-I-SE-32, 2017-1.2.1-NKP-2017-00002, 2019-2.1.7-ERA-NET-2020-00005, TKP2021-EGA-25

University and Doctoral School

Semmelweis University, Doctoral School of Mental Health Sciences

Supervisor

Dr. Juhász Gabriella, Dr. Antal Péter (BME)

Publication of my abstract

I do not give consent to the publication of my abstract on the website of the congress.

Kind

Szabad

Status

elfogadva

Accepted presentation method

szóbeli

Előadás fájl jóváhagyás

nem rendelkezett róla

Előadó

6859

Start

15:45

End

16:00

Authors (legacy)

Tamás Nagy1,2, Gábor Hullám2, Péter Antal2, Gabriella Juhász1,3

1 Department of Pharmacodynamics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Semmelweis University, Budapest
2 Department of Measurement and Information Systems, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest
3 SE-NAP2 Genetic Brain Imaging Migraine Research Group, Hungarian Brain Research Program, Semmelweis University, Budapest