Gut microbiome-wide association study of depressive symptoms

Djawad Radjabzadeh; Jos A Bosch; André G Uitterlinden; Aeilko H Zwinderman; M Arfan Ikram; Joyce B J van Meurs; Annemarie I Luik; Max Nieuwdorp; Anja Lok; Cornelia M van Duijn; Robert Kraaij; Najaf Amin

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-34502-3

Gut microbiome-wide association study of depressive symptoms

Nat Commun. 2022 Dec 6;13(1):7128. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-34502-3.

Authors

Djawad Radjabzadeh¹, Jos A Bosch^{2

3}, André G Uitterlinden^{1

4}, Aeilko H Zwinderman⁵, M Arfan Ikram⁴, Joyce B J van Meurs¹, Annemarie I Luik⁴, Max Nieuwdorp⁶, Anja Lok⁷, Cornelia M van Duijn^{4

8}, Robert Kraaij⁹, Najaf Amin^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
² Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
³ Department of Medical Psychology, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
⁵ Department of Epidemiology and Data Science, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁶ Department of Internal and Vascular Medicine, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Location AMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁷ Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Location AMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁸ Nuffield Department of population Health, Oxford University, Oxford, UK.
⁹ Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. r.kraaij@erasmusmc.nl.
¹⁰ Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. najaf.amin@ndph.ox.ac.uk.
¹¹ Nuffield Department of population Health, Oxford University, Oxford, UK. najaf.amin@ndph.ox.ac.uk.

Abstract

Depression is one of the most poorly understood diseases due to its elusive pathogenesis. There is an urgency to identify molecular and biological mechanisms underlying depression and the gut microbiome is a novel area of interest. Here we investigate the relation of fecal microbiome diversity and composition with depressive symptoms in 1,054 participants from the Rotterdam Study cohort and validate these findings in the Amsterdam HELIUS cohort in 1,539 subjects. We identify association of thirteen microbial taxa, including genera Eggerthella, Subdoligranulum, Coprococcus, Sellimonas, Lachnoclostridium, Hungatella, Ruminococcaceae (UCG002, UCG003 and UCG005), LachnospiraceaeUCG001, Eubacterium ventriosum and Ruminococcusgauvreauiigroup, and family Ruminococcaceae with depressive symptoms. These bacteria are known to be involved in the synthesis of glutamate, butyrate, serotonin and gamma amino butyric acid (GABA), which are key neurotransmitters for depression. Our study suggests that the gut microbiome composition may play a key role in depression.