Center for Neuropsychiatric Research, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan.
Department of Digital Health, Samsung Advanced Institute for Health Sciences and Technology (SAIHST), Sungkyunkwan University, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea.
Nat Hum Behav. 2024 Mar;8(3):562-575. doi: 10.1038/s41562-023-01781-9. Epub 2024 Jan 5.
Educational attainment (EduYears), a heritable trait often used as a proxy for cognitive ability, is associated with various health and social outcomes. Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) on EduYears have been focused on samples of European (EUR) genetic ancestries. Here we present the first large-scale GWAS of EduYears in people of East Asian (EAS) ancestry (n = 176,400) and conduct a cross-ancestry meta-analysis with EduYears GWAS in people of EUR ancestry (n = 766,345). EduYears showed a high genetic correlation and power-adjusted transferability ratio between EAS and EUR. We also found similar functional enrichment, gene expression enrichment and cross-trait genetic correlations between two populations. Cross-ancestry fine-mapping identified refined credible sets with a higher posterior inclusion probability than single population fine-mapping. Polygenic prediction analysis in four independent EAS and EUR cohorts demonstrated transferability between populations. Our study supports the need for further research on diverse ancestries to increase our understanding of the genetic basis of educational attainment.
受教育程度（EduYears）是一种遗传特征，常被用作认知能力的替代指标，与各种健康和社会结果相关。先前针对受教育程度的全基因组关联研究（GWAS）主要集中在欧洲（EUR）遗传血统的样本上。在这里，我们报告了第一个东亚（EAS）人群中受教育程度的大规模 GWAS（n=176400），并与 EUR 人群中受教育程度的 GWAS 进行了跨血统荟萃分析（n=766345）。受教育程度在 EAS 和 EUR 之间显示出较高的遗传相关性和经过功率调整的可转移性比率。我们还发现了两个群体之间相似的功能富集、基因表达富集和跨性状遗传相关性。跨血统精细映射确定了具有比单一人群精细映射更高后验纳入概率的细化可信集。在四个独立的 EAS 和 EUR 队列中的多基因预测分析表明了人群之间的可转移性。我们的研究支持在不同血统中进一步研究的必要性，以增加我们对受教育程度遗传基础的理解。
