Publications by authors named "Schork A"

Background: Accurate diagnosis of bipolar disorder (BPD) is difficult in clinical practice, with an average delay between symptom onset and diagnosis of about 7 years. A depressive episode often precedes the first manic episode, making it difficult to distinguish BPD from unipolar major depressive disorder (MDD).

Aims: We use genome-wide association analyses (GWAS) to identify differential genetic factors and to develop predictors based on polygenic risk scores (PRS) that may aid early differential diagnosis.

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Our understanding of brain iron regulation and its disruption in disease is limited. Excess iron affects motor circuitry, contributing to Parkinson's disease (PD) risk. The molecular mechanisms regulating central iron levels, beyond a few well-known genes controlling peripheral iron, remain unclear.

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Article Synopsis
  • Large biobank samples allow researchers to combine detailed family histories and genetic data to investigate complex diseases.
  • The study introduces a new method called Pearson-Aitken Family Genetic Risk Scores (PA-FGRS) to estimate disease risk based on family medical histories.
  • Applying PA-FGRS to major depressive disorder (MDD) shows improved understanding of genetic factors and clinical variability, and enhances the effectiveness of genetic studies across different complex conditions.
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The impact of rare recurrent copy number variants (rCNVs) and polygenic background attributed to common variants, on the risk of psychiatric disorders is well-established in separate studies. However, it remains unclear how polygenic background modulates the effect of rCNVs. Using the population-representative iPSYCH2015 case-cohort sample (N=96,599), we investigated the association between absolute risk of psychiatric disorders and carriage of rCNVs and polygenic scores (PGS), as well as the interaction effect between the two on disease risk.

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Emerging evidence has shown that assortative mating (AM) is a key factor that shapes the landscape of complex human traits. It can increase the overall prevalence of disorders, influence occurrences of comorbidities, and bias estimation of genetic architectures. However, there is lack of large-scale studies to examine the cultural differences and the generational trends of AM for psychiatric disorders.

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Importance: Recurrent copy number variants (rCNVs) have been associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders in case-control studies, but their population-level impact is unknown.

Objective: To provide unbiased population-based estimates of prevalence and risk associated with psychiatric disorders for rCNVs and to compare risks across outcomes, rCNV dosage type (deletions or duplications), and locus features.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This genetic association study is an analysis of data from the Lundbeck Foundation Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research (iPSYCH) case-cohort sample of individuals born in Denmark in 1981-2008 and followed up until 2015, including (1) all individuals (n = 92 531) with a hospital discharge diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder (MDD), or schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) and (2) a subcohort (n = 50 625) randomly drawn from the source population.

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In this longitudinal observational study, we measured urinary glucose concentration, body composition and volume status (bioimpedance spectroscopy) and plasma renin and aldosterone concentrations in = 22 kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) initiating on SGLT2I at baseline (BL), and after 1 week and 1, 3, and 6 months. Estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) decreased by -2 mL/min/1.73 m (IQR -10-0) after 1 week and remained stable thereafter.

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Aim: In rodent models of nephrotic syndrome (NS), edema formation was prevented by blockade of the epithelial sodium channel ENaC with amiloride. However, apart from case reports, there is no evidence favoring ENaC blockade in patients with NS.

Methods: The monocentric randomized controlled AMILOR study investigated the antiedematous effect of amiloride (starting dose 5 mg/day, max.

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Large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) strongly suggest that most traits and diseases have a polygenic component. This observation has motivated the development of disease-specific "polygenic scores (PGS)" that are weighted sums of the effects of disease-associated variants identified from GWAS that correlate with an individual's likelihood of expressing a specific phenotype. Although most GWAS have been pursued on disease traits, leading to the creation of refined "Polygenic Risk Scores" (PRS) that quantify risk to diseases, many GWAS have also been pursued on extreme human longevity, general fitness, health span, and other health-positive traits.

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Article Synopsis
  • Accurately diagnosing bipolar disorder (BD) can take around 7 years due to its overlap with unipolar major depressive disorder (MDD), especially since the first manic episode often follows a depressive one.
  • This study uses genome-wide association analyses (GWAS) and polygenic risk scores (PRS) from a large cohort to identify genetic factors that could help differentiate between BD and MDD early on.
  • The results show that while BD and MDD are genetically distinct and share a continuum of genetic risk, larger future studies are needed to enhance the accuracy of these genetic predictors for early diagnosis.
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Introduction: SGLT2 inhibitors are used to reduce the risk of progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD). In patients with type 2 diabetes, they have been found to reduce extracellular volume. Given the high prevalence of extracellular volume expansion and overhydration (OH) in CKD, we investigated whether SGLT2 inhibitors might correct these disturbances in CKD patients.

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  • The study analyzes 317 ancient genomes from Mesolithic and Neolithic periods across northern and western Eurasia to understand human migration impacts during the Holocene.* -
  • Findings show a significant genetic divide between eastern and western populations, with the west experiencing major gene replacement due to the introduction of farming, while the east maintained its hunter-gatherer ancestry longer.* -
  • The Yamnaya culture, which emerged around 5,000 BP, played a crucial role in spreading ancestry across western Eurasia, leading to significant genetic changes in European populations.*
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Major migration events in Holocene Eurasia have been characterized genetically at broad regional scales. However, insights into the population dynamics in the contact zones are hampered by a lack of ancient genomic data sampled at high spatiotemporal resolution. Here, to address this, we analysed shotgun-sequenced genomes from 100 skeletons spanning 7,300 years of the Mesolithic period, Neolithic period and Early Bronze Age in Denmark and integrated these with proxies for diet (C and N content), mobility (Sr/Sr ratio) and vegetation cover (pollen).

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The Holocene (beginning around 12,000 years ago) encompassed some of the most significant changes in human evolution, with far-reaching consequences for the dietary, physical and mental health of present-day populations. Using a dataset of more than 1,600 imputed ancient genomes, we modelled the selection landscape during the transition from hunting and gathering, to farming and pastoralism across West Eurasia. We identify key selection signals related to metabolism, including that selection at the FADS cluster began earlier than previously reported and that selection near the LCT locus predates the emergence of the lactase persistence allele by thousands of years.

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Background: Symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD) are commonly assessed using self-rating instruments like the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) (current symptoms) and the Composite International Diagnostic Interview Short-Form (CIDI-SF) (worst-episode symptoms). We performed a systematic comparison between them for their genetic architecture and utility in investigating MDD heterogeneity.

Methods: Using data from the UK Biobank (n = 41,948-109,417), we assessed the single nucleotide polymorphism heritability and genetic correlation (r) of both sets of MDD symptoms.

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Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a complex disorder that manifests variability in long-term outcomes and clinical presentations. The genetic contributions to such heterogeneity are not well understood. Here we show several genetic links to clinical heterogeneity in ADHD in a case-only study of 14,084 diagnosed individuals.

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Biobanks that collect deep phenotypic and genomic data across many individuals have emerged as a key resource in human genetics. However, phenotypes in biobanks are often missing across many individuals, limiting their utility. We propose AutoComplete, a deep learning-based imputation method to impute or 'fill-in' missing phenotypes in population-scale biobank datasets.

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Biobanks often contain several phenotypes relevant to diseases such as major depressive disorder (MDD), with partly distinct genetic architectures. Researchers face complex tradeoffs between shallow (large sample size, low specificity/sensitivity) and deep (small sample size, high specificity/sensitivity) phenotypes, and the optimal choices are often unclear. Here we propose to integrate these phenotypes to combine the benefits of each.

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Recurrent copy number variants (rCNVs) are associated with increased risk of neuropsychiatric disorders but their pathogenic population-level impact is unknown. We provide population-based estimates of rCNV-associated risk of neuropsychiatric disorders for 34 rCNVs in the iPSYCH2015 case-cohort sample (n=120,247). Most observed significant increases in rCNV-associated risk for ADHD, autism or schizophrenia were moderate (HR:1.

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Proportional hazards models have been proposed to analyse time-to-event phenotypes in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). However, little is known about the ability of proportional hazards models to identify genetic associations under different generative models and when ascertainment is present. Here we propose the age-dependent liability threshold (ADuLT) model as an alternative to a Cox regression based GWAS, here represented by SPACox.

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Article Synopsis
  • The accuracy of polygenic scores (PGS) improves significantly with larger sample sizes, which can be difficult to obtain, but using genetically related traits can help expand these samples.
  • The study introduces a new method for creating multi-PGS from existing genome-wide association studies (GWAS) without needing to pick the most relevant studies individually.
  • The multi-PGS framework shows enhanced prediction accuracy, achieving up to a 9-fold increase for certain psychiatric disorders, and can also be applied to new biobanks and traits lacking prior GWAS data.
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  • The study investigates the association between circulating levels of the astrocytic marker S100B and the risk of various neuropsychiatric disorders, using two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR).
  • The results indicate that higher S100B levels measured soon after birth may causally increase the risk of major depressive disorder (MDD), while increased levels in older adults are linked to bipolar disorder (BIP).
  • No significant causal links were found for other disorders like schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's, suggesting a nuanced relationship that could impact diagnosing and managing mood disorders.
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We developed a comprehensive method for functional assessment of the changes in immune populations and killing activity of peripheral blood mononuclear cells after cocultures with cancer cells using mass cytometry. In this study, a 43-marker mass cytometry panel was applied to a coculture of immune cells from healthy donors' peripheral blood mononuclear cells with diverse cancer cell lines. DNA content combined with classical CD45 surface staining was used as gating parameters for cocultures of immune cells (CD45/DNA) with hematological (CD45/DNA) and solid cancer cell lines (CD45/DNA).

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Endometriosis is a common condition associated with debilitating pelvic pain and infertility. A genome-wide association study meta-analysis, including 60,674 cases and 701,926 controls of European and East Asian descent, identified 42 genome-wide significant loci comprising 49 distinct association signals. Effect sizes were largest for stage 3/4 disease, driven by ovarian endometriosis.

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