AI Article Synopsis

  • Common genetic variants account for less variation in complex traits like tobacco use than previously thought, leading to discussions about "missing heritability."
  • A study of over 26,000 individuals of European descent and nearly 12,000 of African descent found that rare genetic variants contribute significantly to the heritability of smoking behaviors.
  • The research revealed that rare variants could explain up to 74% of the heritability estimates for smoking traits, which are much higher than those based on common variants alone.

Article Abstract

Common genetic variants explain less variation in complex phenotypes than inferred from family-based studies, and there is a debate on the source of this 'missing heritability'. We investigated the contribution of rare genetic variants to tobacco use with whole-genome sequences from up to 26,257 unrelated individuals of European ancestries and 11,743 individuals of African ancestries. Across four smoking traits, single-nucleotide-polymorphism-based heritability ([Formula: see text]) was estimated from 0.13 to 0.28 (s.e., 0.10-0.13) in European ancestries, with 35-74% of it attributable to rare variants with minor allele frequencies between 0.01% and 1%. These heritability estimates are 1.5-4 times higher than past estimates based on common variants alone and accounted for 60% to 100% of our pedigree-based estimates of narrow-sense heritability ([Formula: see text], 0.18-0.34). In the African ancestry samples, [Formula: see text] was estimated from 0.03 to 0.33 (s.e., 0.09-0.14) across the four smoking traits. These results suggest that rare variants are important contributors to the heritability of smoking.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9985486PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01408-5DOI Listing

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