A recent study, “Large-scale GWAS reveals insights into the genetic architecture of same-sex sexual behavior,” published in Science Magazine found that there is no single gene that leads to non-heterosexual behavior. The study was conducted by Dr. Andrea Ganna and colleagues.

KUSI News interviewed Dr. Abraham Palmer on what the study findings may mean. Dr. Palmer, who was not involved in the study, noted that researchers were able to identify “a few specific genes that influence non-heterosexual behavior in both men and women.” However, the study did not establish a way

The article, “Phenome-wide investigation of health outcomes associated with genetic predisposition to loneliness,” has been accepted for publication in Human Molecular Genetics. Dr. Abdel Abdellaoui and Dr. Abraham Palmer are co-authors along with Dorret Boomsma, Lea Davis, Stephanie Cacioppo, Karin Verweij, Yi Lu, Nancy Pedersen, Ingrid Szilagyi, Henning Tiemeier, Alexandra Neumann, Miriam Mosing, A.H.M. Willemsen, Jouke- Jan Hottenga, Hill Ip, Michel Nivard, Jorien Treur, Damiaan Denys,  Cornelia van Duijn, Najaf Amin, Bart Baselmans, Mathijs van der Zee, Julia Sealock, Sarah Elson, Sandra Sanchez Roige, Jessica Dennis, and Sarah Elson.

Eden’s project focused on calling genotypes for the X and Y chromosomes using GBS data. She was able to adapt the pipeline for use in the sex chromosomes but discovered that imputation was much less successful because the reference genotype data that we had been using for the autosomes is much less complete for the sex chromosomes. Future work will use high and low coverage whole genome sequence data to discover and call SNPs on the sex chromosomes.

The article, “Genetic risk for major depressive disorder and loneliness in sex-specific associations with coronary artery disease,” was accepted for publication in Molecular Psychiatry. Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Roige and Dr. Abraham Palmer are co-authors along with Jessica Dennis, Julia Sealock, Rebecca Levinson, Eric Farber-Eger, Jacob Franco, Sarah Fong, Peter Straub, Donald Hucks, Wen-Liang Song, MacRae Linton, Pierre Fontanillas, Sarah Elson, Douglas Ruderfer, Abdel Abdellaoui, Dorret Boomsma, Nancy Cox, Guanhua Chen, Jonathan Mosley, Quinn Wells, and Lea Davis.

The article, “Goal/Sign-Tracking Phenotype Reveals Associations between Behavior and Microbiome in a Sex-Dependent Manner in the Rat,” has been accepted for publication in EBioMedicine. Dr. John Cryan and Dr. Abraham Palmer are co-authors along with Veronica Peterson, Jerry Richards, Raul Cabrerarubio, Oksana Polesskaya, Apurva Chitre, A. Baud, Fiona Crispie, Ted Dinan, Christopher King, Jordan Tripi, Thomaz Bastiaanssen, and Paul Meyer.

The goal of the center is to use outbred rats to study the genetic basis of drug self-administration and related behavioral traits. More information is available at www.ratgenes.org.

Drs. Amanda Barkley-Levenson and Dr. Abraham Palmer attended the Research Society on Alcoholism conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota on June 22-26.

Amanda presented a poster titled, “Glyoxalase 1 and sensitivity to the motivational effects of ethanol.”

Abraham presented a talk titled, “Dissecting the genetics of alcohol Consumption and alcohol misuse, and overlap with alcohol dependence.” He also was a discussant for a symposium titled, “Using outbred N/NIH HS rats to perform GWAS for substance abuse-relevant traits.”

The 5th Annual Retreat for the NIDA Center for GWAS in Outbred Rats (Director – Dr. Palmer) was held on June 12, 2019. Investigators from the P50 Center, as well as PIs of the grants affiliated with the Center, gave short talks about their projects, followed by discussion. The Advisory Board had a closed-door meeting to provide feedback to Dr. Palmer.

On June 8-11, 2019, the Complex Traits Consortium (CTC) meeting was held at UCSD and hosted by Dr. Abraham Palmer.

The meeting covered quantitative approaches to mouse and rodent genetics. The meeting had three plenary speakers, a poster session, and many short talks that were drawn from submitted abstracts and organized thematically.

CTC talks from the Palmer Lab:
Abraham Palmer: “First five years of the NIDA Center for GWAS in Outbred Rats”
Apurva Chitre: “Genome wide association study in 3,173 outbred rats identifies 31 loci for body weight, body mass index, adiposity, and fasting

Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Roige had a healthy baby girl named Margot. Congratulations, Sandra!