We prioritized variants using biologically and statistically informed annotations. To prioritize genes and their target tissues we integrated both transcriptomics and CADD score prioritized variants. This method aided in the identification of shared causal loci for phenotype and tissue-specific eQTLs as evidenced by the high probability for 5 of the 17 genes tested. SNPs at CCDC71 (“Coiled-Coil Domain Containing 71”) have been reported to be associated with depressive symptoms in a multivariate genome wide association meta-analysis, and our prioritized SNP is in strong LD with that study’s lead SNP (current study rs7617480, r2=0.83, D’=1.0).32 The FADS1 protein product, “Fatty Acid Desaturase 1” is involved in fatty-acid regulation and variants in this region have been reported to be associated with depression and substance use disorders. There is consistent evidence in the literature for an association with depleted omega-3 and increased depression risk, though a role for omega-3 supplementation in treatment of depression is still controversial.33 Variants in SPPL3, encoding “Signal Peptide Peptidase Like 3”, were reported to be associated with risk to major depression by Hyde and colleagues.9 The TRAF3 protein
