QBI Seminar: Estimating genetic variation for human complex traits and common diseases using whole genome sequence data
Event Details
- Date:
- Wednesday, 03 June 2015
- Time:
- 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Room:
- Level 7 Auditorium
- UQ Location:
- Queensland Brain Institute (St Lucia)
- URL:
- http://www.qbi.uq.edu.au/neuroscience-seminars
- Event category(s):
Event Contact
- Name:
- Ms Deirdre Wilson
- Phone:
- 66300
- Email:
- d.wilson5@uq.edu.au
- Org. Unit:
- Queensland Brain Institute
Event Description
- Full Description:
- A/Professor Jian Yang
Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland
Title: Estimating genetic variation for human complex traits and common diseases using whole genome sequence data
Abstract:
Understanding the extent to which variation in DNA sequence explains variation in phenotype is of fundamental importance to genetics, and quantifying the relative contributions of common and rare variants to phenotypic variation is of great importance for experimental designs that aim to disentangle the genetic architecture of complex traits (e.g. obesity and schizophrenia). We developed a new method to estimate heritability for complex traits from unrelated individuals using whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data. We demonstrate by simulations based on real WGS data that ~97% and ~72% of variation at common and rare sequence variants, respectively, can be captured by SNP array data imputed to a sequenced reference panel. Using our method, we estimate from 44,126 unrelated individuals of European descent that all ~17M imputed variants explain 56% of variance for height (a model trait) and 27% for obesity (as measured by body mass index, BMI). We find evidence that both height and BMI have been under natural selection. We conclude that narrow-sense heritability is likely to be between 60 and 70% for height and between 30 and 40% for BMI. Therefore, missing heritability is small for both these traits. For further gene and variant discovery of complex traits, a design with SNP arrays followed by sequence imputation is more cost-effective than WGS at current prices. Our results have implications for gene discovery for common diseases, including neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Directions to UQ
- Google Map:
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- Directions:
- St Lucia Campus | Gatton campus.
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