Tolerance to shift work varies; only some shift workers suffer from disturbed sleep, fatigue, and job-related exhaustion. Our aim was to explore molecular genetic risk factors for intolerance to shift work.
We assessed intolerance to shift work with job-related exhaustion symptoms in shift workers using the emotional exhaustion subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey, and carried out a genome-wide association study (GWAS) using Illumina's Human610-Quad BeadChip (n = 176). The most significant findings were further studied in three groups of Finnish shift workers (n = 577). We assessed methylation in blood cells with the Illumina HumanMethylation450K BeadChip, and examined gene expression levels in the publicly available eGWAS Mayo data.
The second strongest signal identified in the GWAS (p = 2.3 Ã? 10E-6) was replicated in two of the replication studies with p