Investigating genetic overlap between antidepressant and lithium response and treatment resistance in major depressive disorder

Treatment response and resistance in major depressive disorder (MDD) are suggested to be heritable. Due to significant challenges in defining treatment-related phenotypes, our understanding of their genetic bases is limited. This study aimed to derive a stringent definition of treatment resistance and to investigate genetic overlap between treatment response and resistance in MDD. Using electronic medical records on the use of antidepressants and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) from Swedish registers, we derived the phenotype of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) within ~ 4 500 individuals with MDD in three Swedish cohorts. Considering antidepressants and lithium are first-line treatment and augmentation used for MDD, respectively, we generated polygenic risk scores of antidepressant and lithium response for individuals with MDD, and evaluated their associations with treatment resistance by comparing TRD with non-TRD. Among 1 778 ECT-treated MDD cases, nearly all (94%) used antidepressants before first ECT, and the vast majority had at least one (84%) or two (61%) antidepressants of adequate duration, suggesting these MDD cases receiving ECT were resistant to antidepressants. We found that TRD cases tend to have lower genetic load of antidepressant response than non-TRD, although the difference was not significant; furthermore, TRD cases had significantly higher genetic load of lithium response (OR = 1.10–1.12 under different definitions). The results support evidence of heritable components in treatment-related phenotypes and highlight the overall genetic pro le of lithium-sensitivity in TRD. This finding further provides a genetic explanation for lithium efficacy in treating TRD.