Findings and insights from the genetic investigation of age of first reported occurrence for complex disorders in the UK Biobank and FinnGen

0 views • Oct 27, 2021
0
Save
Cite
Share

Author(s)

Author Name

Uploader

Yen-Chen Anne Feng

Published 5 Projects

Genetics Genetic And Genomic Medicine

Tian Ge

Mattia Cordioli

Published 1 Project

Genetic And Genomic Medicine

FinnGen

Published 1 Project

Genetic And Genomic Medicine

andrea ganna

Published 3 Projects

Genetics Genetic And Genomic Medicine

Jordan Smoller

Published 1 Project

Genetic And Genomic Medicine

Samuel F. Berkovic

Published 3 Projects

Genetics Genetic And Genomic Medicine

Add New Author

Age of onset contains information on the timing of events relevant to disease etiology, but there has not been a systematic investigation of its heritability from GWAS data. Here, we characterize the genetic architecture of age of first occurrence and its genomic relationship with disease susceptibility for a wide range of complex disorders in the UK Biobank. For diseases with a sufficient sample size, we discover that age of first occurrence has non-trivial genetic contributions, some with specific genetic risk factors not associated with susceptibility to the disease. Through genetic correlation analysis, we show that an earlier health-event occurrence is correlated with a higher polygenic risk of disease susceptibility. An independent genetic investigation of the FinnGen cohort replicates the pattern of heritability and genetic correlation estimates. We then demonstrate that incorporating disease onset age with susceptibility may improve genetic risk prediction and stratification.