Substack cometh, and lo it is good. (Pricing)

74 loci for cognitive development; yes, this is happening

Screenshot 2016-05-11 12.07.21

Screenshot 2016-05-11 12.20.14No time to comment. Yes, the hits with SNPs are cool. But look at all the functional associations and analysis in this paper! Some serious biology in this. The figure from the paper to the left which shows how the genes associated with this SNP hits are expressed in different tissue/types and organs. These are the biggest effect SNPs for years of education in the genome, so it makes sense that they’d be way over-expressed in the brain. It is definitely more convincing to those who might be skeptical a priori than some statistically robust associations (well, it should be more convincing at least).

Genome-wide association study identifies 74 loci associated with educational attainment:

Educational attainment is strongly influenced by social and other environmental factors, but genetic factors are estimated to account for at least 20% of the variation across individuals1. Here we report the results of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for educational attainment that extends our earlier discovery sample1, 2 of 101,069 individuals to 293,723 individuals, and a replication study in an independent sample of 111,349 individuals from the UK Biobank. We identify 74 genome-wide significant loci associated with the number of years of schooling completed. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with educational attainment are disproportionately found in genomic regions regulating gene expression in the fetal brain. Candidate genes are preferentially expressed in neural tissue, especially during the prenatal period, and enriched for biological pathways involved in neural development. Our findings demonstrate that, even for a behavioural phenotype that is mostly environmentally determined, a well-powered GWAS identifies replicable associated genetic variants that suggest biologically relevant pathways. Because educational attainment is measured in large numbers of individuals, it will continue to be useful as a proxy phenotype in efforts to characterize the genetic influences of related phenotypes, including cognition and neuropsychiatric diseases.

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