The role of parental genotype in predicting offspring years of education: evidence for genetic nurture

Willoughby, Emily A.; Iacono, William G.; Rustichini, Aldo; Lee, James J.

doi:10.1038/s41380-019-0494-1

Cited by 37 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…GWAS has identified more than 60,000 genetic associations for thousands of human diseases and traits, yet our understanding towards their etiology remains incomplete 36 . Recent advances in family-based studies [6][7][8][9]14,15,28,37 have convincingly demonstrated genetic nurture effects on a variety of behavioral traits as well as health-related outcomes. These results also shed important light on the limitations of current GWAS approaches.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is thus of great interest to understand the etiologic relevance of its direct and indirect components and how they affect other genetically correlated phenotypes. Using a PGS approach, Willoughby et al 9 found that the indirect effect of EA may work through the family socioeconomic status. The genetic relationships of the direct and indirect effect of EA with other traits, however, are still unknown.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent evidence from family-based studies suggested that a substantial fraction of genetic associations may be mediated by the family environment [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] . In particular, parental genotypes could affect the family environment through the parents' educational attainment 17 , personalities 18,19 , behavior [20][21][22][23][24] , and socioeconomic status 25 , which could subsequently affect the offspring's phenotypes 26 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, PGS of non-transmitted alleles in parents has an effect size that is about 30% of that by the standard PGS for educational attainment (EA). Using PGS, several other studies [7][8][9][10][11][12] also identified indirect genetic effects on various phenotypes. Existing methods to detect direct and indirect genetic effects, however, have limitations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Estimating genetic nurture with summary statistics of multi-generational genome-wide association studies

Zhong

Lin

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Marginal effect estimates in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are mixtures of direct and indirect genetic effects. Existing methods to dissect these effects require family-based, individual-level genetic and phenotypic data with large samples, which is difficult to obtain in practice. Here, we propose a novel statistical framework to estimate direct and indirect genetic effects using summary statistics from GWAS conducted on own and offspring phenotypes. Applied to birth weight, our method showed nearly identical results with those obtained using individual-level data. We also decomposed direct and indirect genetic effects of educational attainment (EA), which showed distinct patterns of genetic correlations with 45 complex traits. The known genetic correlations between EA and higher height, lower BMI, less active smoking behavior, and better health outcomes were mostly explained by the indirect genetic component of EA. In contrast, the consistently identified genetic correlation of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with higher EA resides in the direct genetic component. Polygenic transmission disequilibrium test showed a significant over-transmission of the direct component of EA from healthy parents to ASD probands. Taken together, we demonstrate that traditional GWAS approaches, in conjunction with offspring phenotypic data collection in existing cohorts, could greatly benefit studies on genetic nurture and shed important light on the interpretation of genetic associations for human complex traits.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Estimating genetic nurture with summary statistics of multi-generational genome-wide association studies

Zhong

Lin

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…This indicated that there is a direct environmental transmission of parenting on children's outcomes, unconfounded by correlated genetic transmission. Finally, de Zeeuw et al 45 and Willoughby et al 46 both used the full genetic-nurturing design (employing DNA of children and both parents) and found (thereby replicated) geneticnurturing effects on adults' educational attainment. Crucially, for outcomes in childhood, academic achievement and ADHDsymptoms, Zeeuw et al 45 only found direct genetic effects; no genetic nurturing.…”

Section: Pgs Designsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions

2021

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Across a wide range of studies, researchers often conclude that the home environment and children’s outcomes are causally linked. In contrast, behavioral genetic studies show that parents influence their children by providing them with both environment and genes, meaning the environment that parents provide should not be considered in the absence of genetic influences, because that can lead to erroneous conclusions on causation. This article seeks to provide behavioral scientists with a synopsis of numerous methods to estimate the direct effect of the environment, controlling for the potential of genetic confounding. Ideally, using genetically sensitive designs can fully disentangle this genetic confound, but these require specialized samples. In the near future, researchers will likely have access to measured DNA variants (summarized in a polygenic scores), which could serve as a partial genetic control, but that is currently not an option that is ideal or widely available. We also propose a work around for when genetically sensitive data are not readily available: the Familial Control Method. In this method, one measures the same trait in the parents as the child, and the parents’ trait is then used as a covariate (e.g., a genetic proxy). When these options are all not possible, we plead with our colleagues to clearly mention genetic confound as a limitation, and to be cautious with any environmental causal statements which could lead to unnecessary parent blaming.

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The next 10 years of behavioural genomic research

Plomin

2022

JCPP Advances

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Background The explosion caused by the fusion of quantitative genetics and molecular genetics will transform behavioural genetic research in child and adolescent psychology and psychiatry. Methods Although the fallout has not yet settled, the goal of this paper is to predict the next 10 years of research in what could be called behavioural genomics. Results I focus on three research directions: the genetic architecture of psychopathology, causal modelling of gene‐environment interplay, and the use of DNA as an early warning system. Conclusion Eventually, whole‐genome sequencing will be available for all newborns, which means that behavioural genomics could potentially be applied ubiquitously in research and clinical practice.

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The role of parental genotype in predicting offspring years of education: evidence for genetic nurture

Cited by 37 publications

References 36 publications

Estimating genetic nurture with summary statistics of multi-generational genome-wide association studies

Estimating genetic nurture with summary statistics of multi-generational genome-wide association studies

Nurture might be nature: cautionary tales and proposed solutions

The next 10 years of behavioural genomic research

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