The genetic legacy of African Americans from Catoctin Furnace.

Few African Americans have been able to trace family lineages back to ancestors who died before the 1870 United States Census, the first in which all Black people were listed by name. We analyzed 27 individuals from Maryland's Catoctin Furnace African American Cemetery (1774-1850), identifying 41,799 genetic relatives among consenting research participants in 23andMe, Inc.'s genetic database.

Direct-to-consumer genetic testing for factor V Leiden and prothrombin 20210G>A: the consumer experience.

Background: Clinical genetic testing for inherited predisposition to venous thromboembolism (VTE) is common among patients and their families. However, there is incomplete consensus about which individuals should receive testing, and the relative risks and benefits.

Methods: We assessed outcomes of receiving direct-to-consumer (DTC) results for the two most common genetic risk factors for VTE, factor V Leiden in the F5 gene (FVL) and prothrombin 20210G>A in the F2 gene (PT).

Hemochromatosis risk genotype is not associated with colorectal cancer or age at its diagnosis.

Homozygotes for the higher penetrance hemochromatosis risk allele, c.845G>A (p.Cys282Tyr, or C282Y), have been reported to be at a 2- to 3-fold increased risk for colorectal cancer (CRC).

Genetic Consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas.

According to historical records of transatlantic slavery, traders forcibly deported an estimated 12.5 million people from ports along the Atlantic coastline of Africa between the 16th and 19th centuries, with global impacts reaching to the present day, more than a century and a half after slavery's abolition. Such records have fueled a broad understanding of the forced migration from Africa to the Americas yet remain underexplored in concert with genetic data.

Characterization of Prevalence and Health Consequences of Uniparental Disomy in Four Million Individuals from the General Population.

Meiotic nondisjunction and resulting aneuploidy can lead to severe health consequences in humans. Aneuploidy rescue can restore euploidy but may result in uniparental disomy (UPD), the inheritance of both homologs of a chromosome from one parent with no representative copy from the other. Current understanding of UPD is limited to ∼3,300 case subjects for which UPD was associated with clinical presentation due to imprinting disorders or recessive diseases.

Diversity of KIR, HLA Class I, and Their Interactions in Seven Populations of Sub-Saharan Africans.

and sequences were determined for Dogon, Fulani, and Baka populations of western Africa, Mbuti of central Africa, and Datooga, Iraqw, and Hadza of eastern Africa. Study of 162 individuals identified 134 alleles (41 , 60 , and 33 ). Common to all populations are three alleles (, , and ) but no or Unexpectedly, no novel was identified in these previously unstudied and anthropologically distinctive populations.

Germ line variants predispose to both JAK2 V617F clonal hematopoiesis and myeloproliferative neoplasms.

We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify novel predisposition alleles associated with Philadelphia chromosome-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) and JAK2 V617F clonal hematopoiesis in the general population. We recruited a web-based cohort of 726 individuals with polycythemia vera, essential thrombocythemia, and myelofibrosis and 252 637 population controls unselected for hematologic phenotypes. Using a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array platform with custom probes for the JAK2 V617F mutation (V617F), we identified 497 individuals (0.

The impact of direct-to-consumer personal genomic testing on perceived risk of breast, prostate, colorectal, and lung cancer: findings from the PGen study.

Background: Direct access to genomic information has the potential to transform cancer risk counseling. We measured the impact of direct-to-consumer genomic risk information on changes to perceived risk (ΔPR) of breast, prostate, colorectal and lung cancer among personal genomic testing (PGT) customers. We hypothesized that ΔPR would reflect directionality of risk estimates, attenuate with time, and be modified by participant characteristics.

Explaining, not just predicting, drives interest in personal genomics.

Background: There is a widespread assumption that risk prediction is the major driver of customer interest in personal genomic testing (PGT). However, some customers may also be motivated by finding out whether their existing diseases have a genetic etiology. We evaluated the impact of an existing medical diagnosis on customer interest in condition-specific results from PGT.

How Well Do Customers of Direct-to-Consumer Personal Genomic Testing Services Comprehend Genetic Test Results? Findings from the Impact of Personal Genomics Study.

Aim: To assess customer comprehension of health-related personal genomic testing (PGT) results.

Methods: We presented sample reports of genetic results and examined responses to comprehension questions in 1,030 PGT customers (mean age: 46.7 years; 59.

The genetic ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States.

Over the past 500 years, North America has been the site of ongoing mixing of Native Americans, European settlers, and Africans (brought largely by the trans-Atlantic slave trade), shaping the early history of what became the United States. We studied the genetic ancestry of 5,269 self-described African Americans, 8,663 Latinos, and 148,789 European Americans who are 23andMe customers and show that the legacy of these historical interactions is visible in the genetic ancestry of present-day Americans. We document pervasive mixed ancestry and asymmetrical male and female ancestry contributions in all groups studied.

Design, methods, and participant characteristics of the Impact of Personal Genomics (PGen) Study, a prospective cohort study of direct-to-consumer personal genomic testing customers.

Designed in collaboration with 23andMe and Pathway Genomics, the Impact of Personal Genomics (PGen) Study serves as a model for academic-industry partnership and provides a longitudinal dataset for studying psychosocial, behavioral, and health outcomes related to direct-to-consumer personal genomic testing (PGT). Web-based surveys administered at three time points, and linked to individual-level PGT results, provide data on 1,464 PGT customers, of which 71% completed each follow-up survey and 64% completed all three surveys. The cohort includes 15.

Replicability and robustness of genome-wide-association studies for behavioral traits.

A recent genome-wide-association study of educational attainment identified three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) whose associations, despite their small effect sizes (each R (2) ≈ 0.02%), reached genome-wide significance (p < 5 × 10(-8)) in a large discovery sample and were replicated in an independent sample (p < .05).

Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans.

We sequenced the genomes of a ∼7,000-year-old farmer from Germany and eight ∼8,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Luxembourg and Sweden. We analysed these and other ancient genomes with 2,345 contemporary humans to show that most present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: west European hunter-gatherers, who contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to Near Easterners; ancient north Eurasians related to Upper Palaeolithic Siberians, who contributed to both Europeans and Near Easterners; and early European farmers, who were mainly of Near Eastern origin but also harboured west European hunter-gatherer related ancestry. We model these populations' deep relationships and show that early European farmers had ∼44% ancestry from a 'basal Eurasian' population that split before the diversification of other non-African lineages.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis of self-reported allergy identifies shared and allergy-specific susceptibility loci.

Allergic disease is very common and carries substantial public-health burdens. We conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide associations with self-reported cat, dust-mite and pollen allergies in 53,862 individuals. We used generalized estimating equations to model shared and allergy-specific genetic effects.

Dealing with the unexpected: consumer responses to direct-access BRCA mutation testing.

Background. Inherited BRCA gene mutations convey a high risk for breast and ovarian cancer, but current guidelines limit BRCA mutation testing to women with early-onset cancer and relatives of mutation-positive cases. Benefits and risks of providing this information directly to consumers are unknown.

Genome-wide analysis points to roles for extracellular matrix remodeling, the visual cycle, and neuronal development in myopia.

Myopia, or nearsightedness, is the most common eye disorder, resulting primarily from excess elongation of the eye. The etiology of myopia, although known to be complex, is poorly understood. Here we report the largest ever genome-wide association study (45,771 participants) on myopia in Europeans.

The genetic prehistory of southern Africa.

Southern and eastern African populations that speak non-Bantu languages with click consonants are known to harbour some of the most ancient genetic lineages in humans, but their relationships are poorly understood. Here, we report data from 23 populations analysed at over half a million single-nucleotide polymorphisms, using a genome-wide array designed for studying human history. The southern African Khoisan fall into two genetic groups, loosely corresponding to the northwestern and southeastern Kalahari, which we show separated within the last 30,000 years.

Genetic variants associated with breast size also influence breast cancer risk.

Background: While some factors of breast morphology, such as density, are directly implicated in breast cancer, the relationship between breast size and cancer is less clear. Breast size is moderately heritable, yet the genetic variants leading to differences in breast size have not been identified.

Methods: To investigate the genetic factors underlying breast size, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of self-reported bra cup size, controlling for age, genetic ancestry, breast surgeries, pregnancy history and bra band size, in a cohort of 16,175 women of European ancestry.

Cryptic distant relatives are common in both isolated and cosmopolitan genetic samples.

Although a few hundred single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) suffice to infer close familial relationships, high density genome-wide SNP data make possible the inference of more distant relationships such as 2(nd) to 9(th) cousinships. In order to characterize the relationship between genetic similarity and degree of kinship given a timeframe of 100-300 years, we analyzed the sharing of DNA inferred to be identical by descent (IBD) in a subset of individuals from the 23andMe customer database (n = 22,757) and from the Human Genome Diversity Panel (HGDP-CEPH, n = 952). With data from 121 populations, we show that the average amount of DNA shared IBD in most ethnolinguistically-defined populations, for example Native American groups, Finns and Ashkenazi Jews, differs from continentally-defined populations by several orders of magnitude.

Novel associations for hypothyroidism include known autoimmune risk loci.

Hypothyroidism is the most common thyroid disorder, affecting about 5% of the general population. Here we present the current largest genome-wide association study of hypothyroidism, in 3,736 cases and 35,546 controls. Hypothyroidism was assessed via web-based questionnaires.

Navigating a research partnership between academia and industry to assess the impact of personalized genetic testing.

Purpose: To describe the process of structuring a partnership between academic researchers and two personalized genetic testing companies that would manage conflicts of interest while allowing researchers to study the impact of this nascent industry.

Methods: We developed a transparent process of ongoing communication about the interests of all research partners to address challenges in establishing study goals, survey development, data collection, analysis, and manuscript preparation. Using the existing literature on conflicts of interest and our experience, we created a checklist for academic and industry researchers seeking to structure research partnerships.

Efficient replication of over 180 genetic associations with self-reported medical data.

While the cost and speed of generating genomic data have come down dramatically in recent years, the slow pace of collecting medical data for large cohorts continues to hamper genetic research. Here we evaluate a novel online framework for obtaining large amounts of medical information from a recontactable cohort by assessing our ability to replicate genetic associations using these data. Using web-based questionnaires, we gathered self-reported data on 50 medical phenotypes from a generally unselected cohort of over 20,000 genotyped individuals.