Polygenic overlap with granulocyte counts identifies novel loci for clozapine metabolism and clozapine-induced agranulocytosis.

Abstract

While clozapine is the most effective antipsychotic drug, its use is limited due to hematological adverse effects involving the reduction of granulocyte counts with potential life-threatening agranulocytosis. It is not yet possible to predict or prevent the risk of agranulocytosis, and the mechanisms are unknown but likely related to clozapine metabolism. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of clozapine metabolism and clozapine-induced agranulocytosis have identified few genetic loci. We used the largest available GWAS summary statistics of clozapine metabolism (clozapine-to-norclozapine ratio) and clozapine-induced agranulocytosis, applying the conditional false discovery rate (condFDR) method to increase power for genetic discovery by conditioning on granulocyte counts variants. To investigate potential causal effects of shared loci, we performed Mendelian Randomization analyses. After conditioning on granulocyte counts, we identified two novel loci associated with clozapine-to-norclozapine ratio. These loci were significantly associated with clozapine metabolism in a validation sample of 392 clozapine-treated individuals. For clozapine-induced agranulocytosis, five loci were identified after conditioning on granulocyte counts. These five loci were significantly associated with reduced granulocyte counts in a small independent sample of clozapine-treated individuals. Genetic liability to slow clozapine metabolism (high clozapine-to-norclozapine ratio) showed evidence of a causal effect on reduced neutrophil counts, and genetic liability to low neutrophil counts exhibited weak evidence of a causal effect on clozapine-induced agranulocytosis. Our findings of shared genetic variants associated with clozapine metabolism and granulocyte counts may form the basis for developing prediction models for clozapine-induced agranulocytosis.