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Relatedness disequilibrium regression estimates heritability without environmental bias
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Abstract
Heritability measures the proportion of trait variation that is due to genetic inheritance. Measurement of heritability is important in the nature-versus-nurture debate. However, existing estimates of heritability may be biased by environmental effects. Here, we introduce relatedness disequilibrium regression (RDR), a novel method for estimating heritability. RDR avoids most sources of environmental bias by exploiting variation in relatedness due to random Mendelian segregation. We used a sample of 54,888 Icelanders who had both parents genotyped to estimate the heritability of 14 traits, including height (55.4%, s.e. 4.4%) and educational attainment (17.0%, s.e. 9.4%). Our results suggest that some other estimates of heritability may be inflated by environmental effects.
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“AM (rather than population stratification) is likely to be the primary explanation6, although IGEs could also contribute44.”
From Family-GWAS reveals effects of environment and mating on genetic associations (2024) · cites this paper as [44]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Young, A. I., Frigge, M. L., Gudbjartsson, D. F., Thorleifsson, G., Bjornsdottir, G., Sulem, P., Masson, G., Thorsteinsdottir, U., Stefansson, K., & Kong, A.
- Affiliations
- deCODE Genetics (Iceland) (IS)
- Corresponding author
- Young, Alexander I.
- Kong, Augustine
- Venue
- Nature Genetics
- Published
- 2018-08-13
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1304-1310
- ISSN
- 1061-4036 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1718
- PMC
- PMC6130754
- OpenAlex
- W2886507777
- Cited by
- 173
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 3
- FWCI
- 9.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature Genetics (publishedVersion)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (099670/Z/12/Z, 099670)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Keywords
- heritability estimation, environmental bias, Mendelian segregation, genetic relatedness, nature versus nurture, height, educational attainment, genetic epidemiology
- MeSH terms
- Environment, Genotype, Humans, Iceland, Models, Genetic, Phenotype, Genetic Variation, Linkage Disequilibrium, Quantitative Trait, Heritable, Gene-Environment Interaction
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