PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Samuel E. Jones
AU  - Jacqueline M. Lane
AU  - Andrew R. Wood
AU  - Vincent T. van Hees
AU  - Jessica Tyrrell
AU  - Robin N. Beaumont
AU  - Aaron Jefferies
AU  - Hassan S. Dashti
AU  - Melvyn Hillsdon
AU  - Katherine S. Ruth
AU  - Marcus A. Tuke
AU  - Hanieh Yaghootkar
AU  - Seth Sharp
AU  - Yingjie Jie
AU  - William D. Thompson
AU  - Jamie W. Harrison
AU  - Amy Dawes
AU  - Enda M. Byrne
AU  - Henning Tiemeier
AU  - Karla V. Allebrandt
AU  - Jack Bowden
AU  - David W. Ray
AU  - Rachel M. Freathy
AU  - Anna Murray
AU  - Diego R. Mazzotti
AU  - Philip R. Gehrman
AU  - the 23andMe Research Team
AU  - Debbie A. Lawlor
AU  - Timothy M. Frayling
AU  - Martin K. Rutter
AU  - David Hinds
AU  - Richa Saxena
AU  - Michael N. Weedon
TI  - Genome-wide association analyses of chronotype in 697,828 individuals provides new insights into circadian rhythms in humans and links to disease
AID  - 10.1101/303941
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 303941
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/09/13/303941.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/09/13/303941.full
AB  - Using genome-wide data from 697,828 research participants from 23andMe and UK Biobank, we increase the number of identified loci associated with being a morning person, a behavioural indicator of a person’s underlying circadian rhythm, from 24 to 351. Using data from 85,760 individuals with activity-monitor derived measures of sleep timing we show that the chronotype loci influence sleep timing: the mean sleep timing of the 5% of individuals carrying the most “morningness” alleles was 25 minutes earlier than the 5% carrying the fewest. The loci were enriched for genes involved in circadian regulation, cAMP, glutamate and insulin signalling pathways, and those expressed in the retina, hindbrain, hypothalamus, and pituitary. We provide evidence that being a morning person is causally associated with better mental health but does not appear to affect BMI or Type 2 diabetes. This study offers new insights into the biology of circadian rhythms and links to disease in humans.