Assessing the role of genetics in seasonal disease risk in the Finnish population

Seasonal variation has affected human societies throughout history, shaping various aspects of life including agriculture, migration patterns and culture. This influence is observed, among others, in the occurrences of diseases such as viral and bacterial infections, cardiovascular disease and mental disorders. While there are a multitude of factors influencing the timing of disease diagnoses, environmental and behavioral, the genetic role has not been explored to the best of our knowledge. The aim of this thesis was to relate genetic variation to seasonal disease risk. To achieve this, the seasonality of 1,759 disease endpoints was assessed in the Finnish population. A subset of 14 diseases were selected and used as input into a statistical modeling framework that was developed to search for genetic variants associated with seasonal disease risk in the FinnGen study population. A total of 9 genome-wide significant loci affecting seasonality were identified, including a top-sQTL, rs41273830[T], in ITGB8 for major depression and a stop-gain variant, rs601338[A], in FUT2 for intestinal infections, the latter also being protective against disease risk. This introduces a new aspect to genetic research, which can both contribute to better understanding how known disease variants affect disease but also finding new disease variants whose effects are currently obscured by seasonal variation