Genome-Wide Association Studies in Pharmacogenomics of Antidepressants

Abstract

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most common psychiatric disorders worldwide. Doctors must prescribe antidepressants based on educated guesses due to the fact that it is unmanageable to predict the effectiveness of any particular antidepressant in an individual patient. With the recent advent of scientific research, the genome-wide association study (GWAS) is extensively employed to analyze hundreds of thousands of single nucleotide polymorphisms by high-throughput genotyping technologies. In addition to the candidate-gene approach, the GWAS approach has recently been utilized to investigate the determinants of antidepressant response to therapy. In this study, we reviewed GWAS studies, their limitations and future directions with respect to the pharmacogenomics of antidepressants in MDD.

Keywords::

• antidepressants
• genome-wide association study
• major depressive disorder
• pharmacogenomics
• single nucleotide polymorphisms

Acknowledgements

The authors extend their sincere thanks to Vita Genomics, Inc. for funding this research.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was funded by Vita Genomics, Inc., Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare Clinical Trial and Research Center of Excellence (MOHW103-TDU-B-212-113002), Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST 103-2325-B-039-005), and China Medical University Hospital, Taiwan (DMR-102-070 and DMR-102-072). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by Vita Genomics, Inc., Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare Clinical Trial and Research Center of Excellence (MOHW103-TDU-B-212-113002), Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST 103-2325-B-039-005), and China Medical University Hospital, Taiwan (DMR-102-070 and DMR-102-072). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.