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Zhang G, Karns R, Sun G, Indugula SR, Cheng H, Havas-Augustin D, Novokmet N, Rudan D, Durakovic Z, Missoni S, Chakraborty R, Rudan P, Deka R. Extent of height variability explained by known height-associated genetic variants in an isolated population of the Adriatic coast of Croatia. PLoS One 2011; 6:e29475. [PMID: 22216288 PMCID: PMC3246488 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029475] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2011] [Accepted: 11/29/2011] [Indexed: 01/21/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Human height is a classical example of a polygenic quantitative trait. Recent large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified more than 200 height-associated loci, though these variants explain only 2∼10% of overall variability of normal height. The objective of this study was to investigate the variance explained by these loci in a relatively isolated population of European descent with limited admixture and homogeneous genetic background from the Adriatic coast of Croatia. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In a sample of 1304 individuals from the island population of Hvar, Croatia, we performed genome-wide SNP typing and assessed the variance explained by genetic scores constructed from different panels of height-associated SNPs extracted from five published studies. The combined information of the 180 SNPs reported by Lango Allen el al. explained 7.94% of phenotypic variation in our sample. Genetic scores based on 20~50 SNPs reported by the remaining individual GWA studies explained 3~5% of height variance. These percentages of variance explained were within ranges comparable to the original studies and heterogeneity tests did not detect significant differences in effect size estimates between our study and the original reports, if the estimates were obtained from populations of European descent. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE We have evaluated the portability of height-associated loci and the overall fitting of estimated effect sizes reported in large cohorts to an isolated population. We found proportions of explained height variability were comparable to multiple reference GWAS in cohorts of European descent. These results indicate similar genetic architecture and comparable effect sizes of height loci among populations of European descent.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ge Zhang
- Human Genetics Division, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
| | - Rebekah Karns
- Center for Genome Information, Department of Environmental Health, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
| | - Guangyun Sun
- Center for Genome Information, Department of Environmental Health, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
| | - Subba Rao Indugula
- Center for Genome Information, Department of Environmental Health, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
| | - Hong Cheng
- Center for Genome Information, Department of Environmental Health, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
| | | | | | - Dusko Rudan
- Institute for Anthropological Research, Zagreb, Croatia
| | | | - Sasa Missoni
- Institute for Anthropological Research, Zagreb, Croatia
| | - Ranajit Chakraborty
- Center for Computational Genomics, Institute of Investigative Genetics, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Forth Worth, Texas, United States of America
| | - Pavao Rudan
- Institute for Anthropological Research, Zagreb, Croatia
| | - Ranjan Deka
- Center for Genome Information, Department of Environmental Health, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
- * E-mail:
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