A Phenome-Wide association study (PheWAS) of genetic risk for C-reactive protein in children of European Ancestry: Results from the ABCD study

Background

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a moderately heritable marker of systemic inflammation that is associated with adverse physical and mental health outcomes. Identifying factors associated with genetic liability to elevated CRP in childhood may inform our understanding of variability in CRP that could be targeted to prevent and/or delay the onset of related health outcomes.

Methods

We conducted a phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) of genetic risk for elevated CRP (i.e. CRP polygenic risk score [PRS]) among children genetically similar to European ancestry reference populations (median analytic n = 5,509, range = 120–5,556) from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development^SM (ABCD) Study baseline assessment. Associations between CRP PRS and 2,377 psychosocial and neuroimaging phenotypes were estimated using independent mixed effects models nested by recruitment site (or scanner) and family, with ancestral genomic principal components (n = 10), age, and sex, as well as global brain metrics (when relevant) included as fixed effect covariates. Post hoc analyses examined whether: (1) covarying for measured body mass index (BMI) or removing the shared genetic architecture between CRP and BMI altered phenotypic associations, (2) sex moderated CRP PRS associations, and (3) associations were unconfounded by assortative mating or passive gene-environment correlations (using within-family analyses). Multiple testing was adjusted for using Bonferroni and false discovery rate (FDR) correction.

Results

Nine phenotypes were positively associated with CRP PRS after multiple testing correction: five weight- and eating-related phenotypes (e.g. BMI, overeating), three phenotypes related to caregiver somatic problems (e.g. caregiver somatic complaints), as well as weekday video watching (all ps = 1.2 x 10^-7 − 2.5 x 10^-4, all p_FDRs = 0.0002–0.05). No neuroimaging phenotypes were associated with CRP PRS (all ps = 0.0003–0.998; all p_FDRs = 0.08–0.998) after correction for multiple testing. Eating and weight-related phenotypes remained associated with CRP PRS in within-family analyses. Covarying for BMI resulted in largely consistent results, and sex did not moderate any CRP PRS associations. Removing the shared genetic variance between CRP and BMI attenuated all relationships; associations with weekday video watching, caregiver somatic problems and caregiver report that the child is overweight remained significant while associations with waist circumference, weight, and caregiver report that child overeats did not.

Discussion

Genetic liability to elevated CRP is associated with higher weight, eating, and weekday video watching during childhood as well as caregiver somatic problems. These associations were consistent with direct genetic effects (i.e., not solely due to confounding factors like passive gene-environment correlations) and were independent of measured BMI. The majority of associations with weight and eating phenotypes were attributable to shared genetic architecture between BMI and inflammation. The relationship between genetics and heightened inflammation in later life may be partially attributable to modifiable behaviors (e.g. weight and activity levels) that are expressed as early as childhood.