Allelic differences between Europeans and Chinese for CREB1 SNPs and their implications in gene expression regulation, hippocampal structure and function, and bipolar disorder susceptibility

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a polygenic disorder that shares substantial genetic risk factors with major depressive disorder (MDD). Genetic analyses have reported numerous BD susceptibility genes, while some variants, such as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in CACNA1C have been successfully replicated, many others have not and subsequently their effects on the intermediate phenotypes cannot be verified. Here, we studied the MDD-related gene CREB1 in a set of independent BD sample groups of European ancestry (a total of 64 888 subjects) and identified multiple SNPs significantly associated with BD (the most significant being SNP rs6785[A], P = 6.32 × 10−5, odds ratio (OR) = 1.090). Risk SNPs were then subjected to further analyses in healthy Europeans for intermediate phenotypes of BD, including hippocampal volume, hippocampal function and cognitive performance. Our results showed that the risk SNPs were significantly associated with hippocampal volume and hippocampal function, with the risk alleles showing a decreased hippocampal volume and diminished activation of the left hippocampus, adding further evidence for their involvement in BD susceptibility. We also found the risk SNPs were strongly associated with CREB1 expression in lymphoblastoid cells (P<0.005) and the prefrontal cortex (P<1.0 × 10−6). Remarkably, population genetic analysis indicated that CREB1 displayed striking differences in allele frequencies between continental populations, and the risk alleles were completely absent in East Asian populations. We demonstrated that the regional prevalence of the CREB1 risk alleles in Europeans is likely caused by genetic hitchhiking due to natural selection acting on a nearby gene. Our results suggest that differential population histories due to natural selection on regional populations may lead to genetic heterogeneity of susceptibility to complex diseases, such as BD, and explain inconsistencies in detecting the genetic markers of these diseases among different ethnic populations. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited All rights reserved Correspondence: Dr B. Su, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 32 East Jiao-chang Road, Kunming 650223, China. [email protected]. 44These authors contributed equally to this work. 45A full list of the members is provided in the Supplementary Data. 46Data used in preparation of this article were obtained from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database (adni.loni.ucla.edu). As such, the investigators within the ADNI contributed to the design and implementation of ADNI and/or provided data but did not participate in analysis or writing of this report. A complete listing of ADNI investigators can be found at: http://adni.loni.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/how_to_apply/ADNI_Acknowledgement_List.pdf 47A full list of the members in the consortium can be found in their original studies. CONFLICT OF INTEREST The authors declare no conflict of interest. Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on the Molecular Psychiatry website (http://www.nature.com/mp) NIH Public Access Author Manuscript Mol Psychiatry. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2014 April 01. Published in final edited form as: Mol Psychiatry. 2014 April ; 19(4): 452–461. doi:10.1038/mp.2013.37. N IH PA Athor M anscript N IH PA Athor M anscript N IH PA Athor M anscript