Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40583353›Full record

ArticleActa neuropsychiatrica2025

Analysis of 470,000 exome-sequenced cases and controls fails to identify any genes impacting risk of developing affective disorder.

David Curtis

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Acta neuropsychiatrica, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  2. Health effects of loss of function variants in gene targets for Alzheimer's disease prevention.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2025
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

David CurtisUCL Genetics Institute, UCL, Darwin Building, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4089-9183

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectiveA previous analysis of 200,000 exome-sequenced UK Biobank participants using weighted burden analysis of rare, damaging variants failed to identify any genes associated with risk of affective disorder requiring specialist treatment. Exome-sequence data has now been made available for the remaining 270,000 participants and a two-stage process was applied in order to test for association in this second sample using only genes showing suggestive evidence for association in the first sample.

methodsCases were defined as participants who reported having seen a psychiatrist for 'nerves, anxiety, tension or depression'. Exhaustive testing of the first sample was carried out using rare variant analyses informed by 45 different predictors of impact of nonsynonymous variants. The 100 genes showing the strongest evidence for association were then analysed in the second sample using the same predictor as had been most statistically significant in the first sample.

resultsThe results for the 100 nominated genes conformed closely with the null hypothesis, with none approaching statistical significance after correction for multiple testing.

conclusionRisk of common affective disorder, even if severe enough to warrant specialist referral, is not sufficiently impacted by effects of rare variants in a small enough number of genes that effects can be detected even with large sample sizes. Actionable results might be obtained with a more extreme phenotype but very significant resources would be required to achieve adequate power. This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource.

Indexed as

ExomeGenetic Predisposition to DiseaseMood DisordersAdultCase-Control StudiesExome SequencingFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedUnited Kingdomaffective disorderDepressionexomegenerarevariant

Identifiers

PMID40583353
PMCPMC13130275

What Socratic holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.