RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Molecular genetic contributions to social deprivation and household income in UK Biobank (n = 112,151)
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 043000
DO 10.1101/043000
A1 W David Hill
A1 Saskia P Hagenaars
A1 Riccardo E Marioni
A1 Sarah E Harris
A1 David CM Liewald
A1 Gail Davies
A1 International Consortium for Blood Pressure
A1 Andrew M McIntosh
A1 Catharine R Gale
A1 Ian J Deary
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/03/09/043000.abstract
AB Individuals with lower socio-economic status (SES) are at increased risk of physical and mental illnesses and tend to die at an earlier age [1-3]. Explanations for the association between SES and health typically focus on factors that are environmental in origin [4]. However, common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been found collectively to explain around 18% (SE = 5%) of the phenotypic variance of an area-based social deprivation measure of SES [5]. Molecular genetic studies have also shown that physical and psychiatric diseases are at least partly heritable [6]. It is possible, therefore, that phenotypic associations between SES and health arise partly due to a shared genetic etiology. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on social deprivation and on household income using the 112,151 participants of UK Biobank. We find that common SNPs explain 21% (SE = 0.5%) of the variation in social deprivation and 11% (SE = 0.7%) in household income. Two independent SNPs attained genome-wide significance for household income, rs187848990 on chromosome 2, and rs8100891 on chromosome 19. Genes in the regions of these SNPs have been associated with intellectual disabilities, schizophrenia, and synaptic plasticity. Extensive genetic correlations were found between both measures of socioeconomic status and illnesses, anthropometric variables, psychiatric disorders, and cognitive ability. These findings show that some SNPs associated with SES are involved in the brain and central nervous system. The genetic associations with SES are probably mediated via other partly-heritable variables, including cognitive ability, education, personality, and health.