Personality traits are consistently associated with blood mitochondrial DNA copy number estimated from genome sequences in two genetic cohort studies

Figures

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  Figure 1.. Association of mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) with age, and sex differences. Panel (A) is the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) cohort, and panel (B) is the SardiNIA cohort. Plots (i) are regression of mtDNAcn residuals on age after adjusting for sex, sequence coverage, platelets count, and white blood cell parameters. Plots (ii) are comparisons of mtDNAcn residuals after adjusting for age, sequence coverage, platelets count, and white blood cell parameters between males (M) and females (F), with t-test p-values shown.

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  Figure 2.. Association of Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) traits with mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn). Standardized/pooled effects with 95% CI of NEO-PI-R traits after adjusting for the effects of age, sex, sequence coverage, platelets count, and white blood cell parameters. Color coding is green for positive personality types, red for negative personality types, and blue for the composite scores for the big five NEO-PI-R domains. * Traits with false discovery rate (FDR)-corrected meta-analysis p-values≤0.01.

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  Figure 3.. Comparison of mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) values among the five personality-mortality indices created from the vulnerability facet of Neuroticism, activity facet of Extraversion, and self-discipline and competence facets of Conscientiousness. Panel (A) is Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) cohort, and panel (B) is SardiNIA cohort. The personality-mortality index with the lowest mortality risk is 4, and the index with the highest mortality risk is index 0. p-Values of linear regression of mtDNAcn and the personality-mortality index are shown on the plots.

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  Figure 4.. The effect of personality-mortality index (PMI) on mortality is significantly mediated via mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn). Panel (A) is a Kaplan–Meier plot of time to death of Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) participants in the five PMIs. Panel (B) shows the regression coefficients between PMI (predictor), mortality (outcome), and mtDNAcn (mediator) for the BLSA study. The effects of age and sex are adjusted for in the models. The indirect effect is (4.89) × (–0.02) = –0.097. We tested for the significance of the indirect effect using 5000 bootstrap samples and it was statistically significant (p-value=0.002). See Table 3 for more details.

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  Appendix 1—figure 1.. Random-effect meta-analysis of Neuroticism domain of Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R).

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  Appendix 1—figure 2.. Comparison of effect sizes of Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) traits between the two cohorts. Regression model adjusted for the effects of age, sex, sequence coverage, and white blood cell parameters. Color coding is green for positive personality types, red for negative personality types, and blue for the composite scores for the big five NEO-PI-R domains.

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  Appendix 1—figure 3.. Comparison of effect sizes of Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) traits between models with white blood cell (WBC) parameters adjustments and with no adjustments. Panel (A) is Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) cohort, and panel (B) is SardiNIA cohort. Color coding is green for positive personality types, red for negative personality types, and blue for the composite scores for the big five NEO-PI-R domains.

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  Appendix 1—figure 4.. Comparison of mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) values among the four distinct personality types created from the vulnerability facet of Neuroticism and self-discipline facet of Conscientiousness. Panel (A) is Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) cohort, and panel (B) is SardiNIA cohort. The personality type with lowest mortality risk (low vulnerability high self-discipline [LVHD]) has a significantly higher mean mtDNAcn value than the highest mortality risk type (high vulnerability low self-discipline [HVLD]).

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  Appendix 1—figure 5.. Stability of Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) traits across multiple visits. (A) Test–retest stability of the NEO-PI-R traits. Red dash line is Pearson’s correlation of 0.8. All the traits have a high test–retest reliability. (B) The stability of two randomly selected personality traits (Deliberation and Activity) across multiple measurement visits. Plot color represents starting trait values; blue shows individual’s lower initial trait values, and red shows higher initial trait values. The plot shows that subsequent trait measurement tends to stabilize around the initial measurement values.

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  Appendix 1—figure 6.. Correlation between Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) traits. The color intensity and size of circles are indications of the size and significance of the correlation.

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  Appendix 1—figure 7.. Histograms of autosomal and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequencing coverages for (A) Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) and (B) SardiNIA.

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  Appendix 1—figure 8.. Four distinct personality types are created from the vulnerability facet of Neuroticism and the self-discipline facet of Conscientiousness.