Genome-wide genetic homogeneity between sexes and populations for human height and body mass index.
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Abstract | Sex-specific genetic effects have been proposed to be an important source of variation for human complex traits. Here we use two distinct genome-wide methods to estimate the autosomal genetic correlation (rg) between men and women for human height and body mass index (BMI), using individual-level (n = ∼44 000) and summary-level (n = ∼133 000) data from genome-wide association studies. Results are consistent and show that the between-sex genetic correlation is not significantly different from unity for both traits. In contrast, we find evidence of genetic heterogeneity between sexes for waist-hip ratio (rg = ∼0.7) and between populations for BMI (rg = ∼0.9 between Europe and the USA) but not for height. The lack of evidence for substantial genetic heterogeneity for body size is consistent with empirical findings across traits and species. |
Year of Publication | 2015
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Journal | Hum Mol Genet
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Volume | 24
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Issue | 25
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Pages | 7445-9
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Date Published | 2015 Dec 20
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ISSN | 1460-2083
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DOI | 10.1093/hmg/ddv443
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PubMed ID | 26494901
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