Examining sex differences in pleiotropic effects for depression and smoking using polygenic and gene-region aggregation techniques.

ABSTRACT: Sex differences in rates of depression are thought to contribute to sex differences in smoking initiation (SI) and number of cigarettes smoked per day (CPD). One hypothesis is that women smoke as a strategy to cope with anxiety and depression, and have difficulty quitting because of concomitant changes in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis function during nicotine withdrawal states. Despite evidence of biological ties, research has not examined whether genetic factors that contribute to depression-smoking comorbidity differ by sex. We utilized two statistical aggregation techniques-polygenic scores (PGSs) and sequence kernel association testing-to assess the degree of pleiotropy between these behaviors and moderation by sex in the Health and Retirement Study (N = 8,086). At t

SUBMITTER: Schmitz LL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6732217 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature