Discovery of urinary metabolite biomarkers of psychiatric disorders using two-sample Mendelian randomization.

BACKGROUND

Mental health disorders cause substantial patient suffering, which could be alleviated through early diagnostic biomarkers. While biomarker discovery is costly, genetic methods utilizing data from large-scale studies, such as Mendelian randomization, may provide a cost-effective approach.

METHODS

A two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis was conducted to identify potential urinary biomarkers of seven psychiatric disorders using summary statistics from GWAS data.

RESULTS

The analysis revealed 67 analyte-disorder associations, of which 21 were exclusive to a single disorder. Notable associations were observed between tyrosine and schizophrenia (β = -0.041, SE = 0.013, Q = 0.027), creatine and bipolar disorder (β = -0.077, SE = 0.019, Q = 0.002), pyridoxal (β = 0.10, SE = 0.03, Q = 0.042) and ferulic acid 4-sulfate (β =  0.077, SE = 0.025, Q = 0.037) to anorexia nervosa, and N, N-dimethylglycine to ADHD (β = -0.39, SE = 0.11, Q = 0.008).

CONCLUSION

The results identify candidate urinary biomarkers and demonstrate the utility of genetic instruments for biomarker discovery, warranting experimental validation in independent cohorts.

CLINICAL TRIAL NUMBER: Not applicable.