Evaluating the Genetic Correlations Between Left-Handedness and Mental Disorder Using Linkage Disequilibrium Score Regression and Transcriptome-Wide Association Study

Handedness is an elusive human behavioral phenotypes and the genetic basis of it remains unclear until now. The aim of this study is to evaluate the genetic correlations between left-handedness and multiple mental disorders, and explored the genes detected by genetic correlations. In this study, linkage disequilibrium score regression (LDSC) analysis was conducted to evaluate the genetic correlations between left-handedness and multiple mental disorders. The significant genetic correlation was only observed between left-handedness and schizophrenia (SCZ). For the observed genetic correlation, transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS) was performed to identify the genes associated with left-handedness and SCZ, including brain RNA-seq (CBR) and brain RNA-seq splicing (CBRS). We detected several common genes associated with both left-handedness and SCZ, such as YWHAH, MAPT and ANO10. The common genes shared by left-handedness and SCZ were subjected to gene set enrichment analysis. Our study provides a novel clue for understanding the genetic correlation between left-handedness and SCZ.