Circulating S100B levels at birth and risk of six major neuropsychiatric or neurological disorders: a two-sample Mendelian Randomization Study.

Circulating levels of the astrocytic marker S100B have been associated with risk of neuropsychiatric or neurological disorders. However, reported effects have been inconsistent, and no causal relations have yet been established. We applied two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR) on the association statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for circulating S100B levels measured 5-7 days after birth (the iPSYCH sample) and in an older adult sample (mean age, 72.5 years; the Lothian sample), upon those derived from major depression disorder (MDD), schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder (BIP), autism spectral disorder (ASD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and Parkinson’s disease (PD). We studied the causal relations in the two S100B datasets for risk of these six neuropsychiatric disorders. MR suggested increased S100B levels 5-7 days after birth to causally increase the risk of MDD (OR = 1.014; 95%CI = 1.007-1.022; FDR-corrected p = 6.43×10