Abstract

Genome-wide studies often exclude family members, even though they are a valuable source of information. We identified parent–offspring pairs, siblings and couples in the UK Biobank and implemented a family-based DNA-derived heritability method to capture additional genetic effects and multiple sources of environmental influence on neuroticism and years of education. Compared to estimates from unrelated individuals, total heritability increased from 10 to 27% and from 17 to 56% for neuroticism and education respectively by including family-based genetic effects. We detected no family environmental influences on neuroticism. The couple similarity variance component explained 35% of the variation in years of education, probably reflecting assortative mating. Overall, our genetic and environmental estimates closely replicate previous findings from an independent sample. However, more research is required to dissect contributions to the additional heritability by rare and structural genetic effects, assortative mating, and residual environmental confounding. The latter is especially relevant for years of education, a highly socially contingent variable, for which our heritability estimate is at the upper end of twin estimates in the literature. Family-based genetic effects could be harnessed to improve polygenic prediction.

中文翻译：

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英国生物样本库中家庭对神经质和教育的影响

 抽象的

全基因组研究通常排除家庭成员，尽管他们是宝贵的信息来源。我们在英国生物银行中鉴定了亲子对、兄弟姐妹和夫妇，并实施了一种基于家庭的 DNA 衍生遗传方法，以捕获额外的遗传效应和环境对神经质和受教育年限影响的多种来源。与无关个体的估计相比，通过考虑基于家庭的遗传效应，神经质和教育的总遗传力分别从 10% 增加到 27%，从 17% 增加到 56%。我们没有发现家庭环境对神经质有影响。夫妻相似性方差分量解释了 35% 的受教育年限差异，可能反映了选型交配。总体而言，我们的遗传和环境估计与独立样本的先前发现非常相似。然而，需要更多的研究来剖析罕见和结构遗传效应、选型交配和残留环境混杂对额外遗传力的贡献。后者与受教育年限尤其相关，这是一个高度社会偶然的变量，我们的遗传力估计处于文献中双胞胎估计的上限。基于家族的遗传效应可以用来改善多基因预测。