GWAS of 89,283 individuals identifies genetic variants associated with self reporting of being a morning person
Circadian rhythms are a nearly universal feature of living organisms and affect almost every biological process. Our innate preference for mornings or evenings is determined by the phase of our circadian rhythms. We conduct a genome wide association analysis of self reported morningness, followed by analyses of biological pathways and related phenotypes. We identify 15 significantly associated loci, including seven near established circadian genes (rs12736689 near RGS16, P=7.0 x 10 18; rs9479402 near VIP, P=3.9 x 10 11; rs55694368 near PER2, P=2.6 x 10 9; rs35833281 near HCRTR2, P=3.7 x 10 9; rs11545787 near RASD1, P=1.4 x 10 8; rs11121022 near PER3, P=2.0 x 10 8; rs9565309 near FBXL3, P=3.5 x 10 8. Circadian and phototransduction pathways are enriched in our results. Morningness is associated with insomnia and other sleep phenotypes; and is associated with body mass index and depression but we did not find evidence for a causal relationship in our Mendelian randomization analysis. Our findings reinforce current understanding of circadian biology and will guide future studies.
Nature communications