Genetic variation in circadian regulator gene BMAL1 in psychiatric, psychological and cardiometabolic traits: a trans-ancestry UK Biobank study

Background

The link between cardiometabolic disease and mental illness has been well established but remains incompletely explained. One hypothesis suggests that circadian rhythm dysregulation links cardiometabolic disease and mental illnesses. BMAL1 is a circadian rhythm regulatory gene. Human genetic studies have implicated BMAL1 in depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder as well as body mass index, blood pressure and lipid levels.

Objective

We investigated the BMAL1 locus genetic variants for associations with both cardiometabolic and mental illness.

Methods

Genetic and phenotypic data from UK Biobank (~500 000 participants) of White British, African-Caribbean, South Asian, white European and Multiple ancestries were used. Regression analyses using Plink 1.09 was used to identify significant associations, with Bonferroni multiple testing correction. Multiple ancestry meta-analyses using METAL software was used to investigate trans-ancestry consistency in genetic effects.

Findings

We identified associations for body mass index, anhedonia, diastolic and systolic blood pressure, waist-hip ratio, major depressive disorder, neuroticism and risk-taking. Meta-analyses indicated that there are ancestry-wide and ancestry-specific effects on cardiometabolic, mental illness and related traits.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that the associations for mental illness (and related traits) and those for cardiometabolic traits are distinct rather than shared and that these associations were consistent across ancestry groups.

Clinical implications

Further investigation into the tissue-specific roles of BMAL1 is required to fully understand the clinical impact of these findings.