Conditional and unconditional genome-wide association study reveal complicate genetic architecture of human body weight and impacts of smoking

Sci Rep. 2020 Jul 22;10(1):12136. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-68935-x.

Abstract

To reveal the impacts of smoking on genetic architecture of human body weight, we conducted a genome-wide association study on 5,336 subjects in four ethnic populations from MESA (The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis) data. A full genetic model was applied to association mapping for analyzing genetic effects of additive, dominance, epistasis, and their ethnicity-specific effects. Both the unconditional model (base) and conditional model including smoking as a cofactor were investigated. There were 10 SNPs involved in 96 significant genetic effects detected by the base model, which accounted for a high heritability (61.78%). Gene ontology analysis revealed that a number of genetic factors are related to the metabolic pathway of benzopyrene, a main compound in cigarettes. Smoking may play important roles in genetic effects of dominance, dominance-related epistasis, and gene-ethnicity interactions on human body weight. Gene effect prediction shows that the genetic effects of smoking cessation on body weight vary from different populations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Atherosclerosis / pathology
  • Benzopyrenes / chemistry
  • Benzopyrenes / metabolism
  • Body Weight*
  • Epistasis, Genetic
  • Ethnicity / genetics
  • Gene Ontology
  • Genome-Wide Association Study*
  • Genotype
  • Humans
  • Phenotype
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
  • Quantitative Trait, Heritable
  • Smoking / genetics*

Substances

  • Benzopyrenes