Go to JCI Insight
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • By specialty
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Gastroenterology
    • Immunology
    • Metabolism
    • Nephrology
    • Neuroscience
    • Oncology
    • Pulmonology
    • Vascular biology
    • All ...
  • Videos
    • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
    • Video Abstracts
  • Reviews
    • View all reviews ...
    • Complement Biology and Therapeutics (May 2025)
    • Evolving insights into MASLD and MASH pathogenesis and treatment (Apr 2025)
    • Microbiome in Health and Disease (Feb 2025)
    • Substance Use Disorders (Oct 2024)
    • Clonal Hematopoiesis (Oct 2024)
    • Sex Differences in Medicine (Sep 2024)
    • Vascular Malformations (Apr 2024)
    • View all review series ...
  • Viewpoint
  • Collections
    • In-Press Preview
    • Clinical Research and Public Health
    • Research Letters
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Editorials
    • Commentaries
    • Editor's notes
    • Reviews
    • Viewpoints
    • 100th anniversary
    • Top read articles

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Specialties
  • Reviews
  • Review series
  • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
  • Video Abstracts
  • In-Press Preview
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Research Letters
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Editorials
  • Commentaries
  • Editor's notes
  • Reviews
  • Viewpoints
  • 100th anniversary
  • Top read articles
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact

Submit a comment

Genetic evidence suggests posttraumatic stress disorder as a subtype of major depressive disorder
Fuquan Zhang, … , Mingqing Xu, Ancha Baranova
Fuquan Zhang, … , Mingqing Xu, Ancha Baranova
Published April 27, 2021
Citation Information: J Clin Invest. 2022;132(3):e145942. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI145942.
View: Text | PDF
Clinical Research and Public Health Genetics Article has an altmetric score of 6

Genetic evidence suggests posttraumatic stress disorder as a subtype of major depressive disorder

  • Text
  • PDF
Abstract

BACKGROUND Major depressive disorder (MDD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are highly comorbid and exhibit strong correlations with one another. We aimed to investigate mechanisms of underlying relationships between PTSD and 3 kinds of depressive phenotypes, namely, MDD, depressed affect (DAF), and depression (DEP, including both MDD and the broad definition of depression).METHODS Genetic correlations between PTSD and the depressive phenotypes were tested using linkage disequilibrium score regression. Polygenic overlap analysis was used to estimate shared and trait-specific causal variants across a pair of traits. Causal relationships between PTSD and the depressive phenotypes were investigated using Mendelian randomization. Shared genomic loci between PTSD and MDD were identified using cross-trait meta-analysis.RESULTS Genetic correlations of PTSD with the depressive phenotypes were in the range of 0.71–0.80. The estimated numbers of causal variants were 14,565, 12,965, 10,565, and 4,986 for MDD, DEP, DAF, and PTSD, respectively. In each case, causal variants contributing to PTSD were completely or largely covered by causal variants defining each of the depressive phenotypes. Mendelian randomization analysis indicated that the genetically determined depressive phenotypes confer a causal effect on PTSD (b = 0.21–0.31). Notably, genetically determined PTSD confers a causal effect on DEP (b = 0.14) and DAF (b = 0.15), but not MDD. Cross-trait meta-analysis of MDD and PTSD identified 47 genomic loci, including 29 loci shared between PTSD and MDD.CONCLUSION Evidence from shared genetics suggests that PTSD is a subtype of MDD. This study provides support to the efforts in reducing diagnostic heterogeneity in psychiatric nosology.FUNDING The National Key Research and Development Program of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Authors

Fuquan Zhang, Shuquan Rao, Hongbao Cao, Xiangrong Zhang, Qiang Wang, Yong Xu, Jing Sun, Chun Wang, Jiu Chen, Xijia Xu, Ning Zhang, Lin Tian, Jianmin Yuan, Guoqiang Wang, Lei Cai, Mingqing Xu, Ancha Baranova

×

Guidelines

The Editorial Board will only consider comments that are deemed relevant and of interest to readers. The Journal will not post data that have not been subjected to peer review; or a comment that is essentially a reiteration of another comment.

  • Comments appear on the Journal’s website and are linked from the original article’s web page.
  • Authors are notified by email if their comments are posted.
  • The Journal reserves the right to edit comments for length and clarity.
  • No appeals will be considered.
  • Comments are not indexed in PubMed.

Specific requirements

  • Maximum length, 400 words
  • Entered as plain text or HTML
  • Author’s name and email address, to be posted with the comment
  • Declaration of all potential conflicts of interest (even if these are not ultimately posted); see the Journal’s conflict-of-interest policy
  • Comments may not include figures
This field is required
This field is required
This field is required
This field is required
This field is required
This field is required
Rich Text Editor, eletter_body
Editor toolbarsClipboard/Undo CutKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+X CopyKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+C PasteKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+V Paste as plain textKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V Paste from Word UndoKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+Z RedoKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+YEditing Find Replace Select All Spell Check As You TypeLinks LinkKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+K Unlink AnchorForms Form Checkbox Radio Button Text Field Textarea Selection Field Button Image Button Hidden FieldTools Maximize Show BlocksDocument Source Save New Page Preview Print TemplatesBasic Styles BoldKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+B ItalicKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+I UnderlineKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+U Strikethrough Subscript Superscript Copy FormattingKeyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+C Remove FormatParagraph Insert/Remove Numbered List Insert/Remove Bulleted List Decrease Indent Increase Indent Block Quote Create Div Container Align Left Center Align Right Justify Text direction from left to right Text direction from right to left Set languageStylesStylesStylesFormatFormatFontFontSizeSizeColors Text Color Background Color
Press ALT 0 for help
◢Elements path 

Copyright © 2025 American Society for Clinical Investigation
ISSN: 0021-9738 (print), 1558-8238 (online)

Sign up for email alerts

Posted by 10 X users
52 readers on Mendeley
See more details