Biological and clinical insights from genetics of insomnia symptoms.

Nat Genet
Authors
Abstract

Insomnia is a common disorder linked with adverse long-term medical and psychiatric outcomes. The underlying pathophysiological processes and causal relationships of insomnia with disease are poorly understood. Here we identified 57 loci for self-reported insomnia symptoms in the UK Biobank (n = 453,379) and confirmed their effects on self-reported insomnia symptoms in the HUNT Study (n = 14,923 cases and 47,610 controls), physician-diagnosed insomnia in the Partners Biobank (n = 2,217 cases and 14,240 controls), and accelerometer-derived measures of sleep efficiency and sleep duration in the UK Biobank (n = 83,726). Our results suggest enrichment of genes involved in ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis and of genes expressed in multiple brain regions, skeletal muscle, and adrenal glands. Evidence of shared genetic factors was found between frequent insomnia symptoms and restless legs syndrome, aging, and cardiometabolic, behavioral, psychiatric, and reproductive traits. Evidence was found for a possible causal link between insomnia symptoms and coronary artery disease, depressive symptoms, and subjective well-being.

Year of Publication
2019
Journal
Nat Genet
Volume
51
Issue
3
Pages
387-393
Date Published
2019 03
ISSN
1546-1718
DOI
10.1038/s41588-019-0361-7
PubMed ID
30804566
PubMed Central ID
PMC6415688
Links
Grant list
R01 HG003054 / HG / NHGRI NIH HHS / United States
MC_QA137853 / Medical Research Council / United Kingdom
R01 HL113338 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
K01 HL136884 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
R01 DK107859 / DK / NIDDK NIH HHS / United States
R35 HL135818 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
R01 DK102696 / DK / NIDDK NIH HHS / United States
F32 DK102323 / DK / NIDDK NIH HHS / United States
R21 HL121728 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
Wellcome Trust / United Kingdom
T32 HL007567 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
R01 DK105072 / DK / NIDDK NIH HHS / United States