Publication
The heritable basis of gene-environment interactions in cardiometabolic traits
Journal Paper/Review - Dec 21, 2016
Poveda Alaitz, Chen Yan, Brändström Anders, Engberg Elisabeth, Hallmans Göran, Johansson Ingegerd, Renström Frida, Kurbasic Azra, Franks Paul W
Units
PubMed
Doi
Citation
Type
Journal
Publication Date
Issn Electronic
Pages
Brief description/objective
AIMS/HYPOTHESIS
Little is known about the heritable basis of gene-environment interactions in humans. We therefore screened multiple cardiometabolic traits to assess the probability that they are influenced by genotype-environment interactions.
METHODS
Fourteen established environmental risk exposures and 11 cardiometabolic traits were analysed in the VIKING study, a cohort of 16,430 Swedish adults from 1682 extended pedigrees with available detailed genealogical, phenotypic and demographic information, using a maximum likelihood variance decomposition method in Sequential Oligogenic Linkage Analysis Routines software.
RESULTS
All cardiometabolic traits had statistically significant heritability estimates, with narrow-sense heritabilities (h 2) ranging from 24% to 47%. Genotype-environment interactions were detected for age and sex (for the majority of traits), physical activity (for triacylglycerols, 2 h glucose and diastolic BP), smoking (for weight), alcohol intake (for weight, BMI and 2 h glucose) and diet pattern (for weight, BMI, glycaemic traits and systolic BP). Genotype-age interactions for weight and systolic BP, genotype-sex interactions for BMI and triacylglycerols and genotype-alcohol intake interactions for weight remained significant after multiple test correction.
CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION
Age, sex and alcohol intake are likely to be major modifiers of genetic effects for a range of cardiometabolic traits. This information may prove valuable for studies that seek to identify specific loci that modify the effects of lifestyle in cardiometabolic disease.