Genome-wide association study of suicidal behaviour severity in mood disorders

Suicide is a major public health problem and it has a prominent genetic component. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of suicidal behaviour severity.

Suicide behaviour severity was assessed within the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry in our mood disorder sample (n = 3506) for the GWAS. We also performed polygenic risk score analyses to explore genetic sharing between suicidal behaviour severity and a number of phenotypes, including bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder, impulsivity, insomnia, educational attainment, loneliness, maltreatment, and amygdala volume.

We did not detect genome-wide significant findings at the single-marker or gene level. We report a number of suggestive single-marker and gene-based findings. Our polygenic risk score analyses did not yield significant findings with these phenotypes.

Larger sample sizes are required to detect moderate effects.