GWAS and Human Ageing Flashcards
Is breast cancer polygenic or monogenic?
Polygenic
What are the characteristics of the most common breast cancer susceptibility variants identified by GWAS?
Intronic
Regulatory - affect protein expression levels
What are cross-disease heritability correlations?
Comparing gene association pattern of one disease with pattern for another
What does high genetic correlation for 2 diseases mean?
Shared genetic risk factors
What is the key role of telomeres?
Maintain genome stability and integrity
What is required for telomere maintenance?
Telomerase
What is telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT)?
Subunit of telomerase
What is the effect of TERT SNPs?
Decrease TERT expression level
Loss of telomere function
Genomic instability
Increases risk of certain cancers
How might age increase cancer risk?
TERT and telomere length decrease with age
What do most gene variants associated with coronary artery disease by GWAS affect?
Gene expression regulation
What is pleiotropy?
Single gene affects multiple traits
What did the comparison of menopause age variant frequency patterns to a neutral line find and what does this suggest?
Multiple variants for early menopause at ‘lower than neutral’ frequency
Strong polygenic selection against early menopause variants
Why might there be an antagonistic relationship between CAD and reproductive success?
May have genetic predisposition to CAD - same variants have positive effect on reproductive traits
What are the 5 outcomes that are used as indirect measures of ageing?
Long-livedness
Lifespan
Parental lifespan - link to offspring genetics
Healthspan - age before first chronic disease
Age-related diseases and traits
What did an genetic correlation study between multiple complex traits with healthspan find?
Negative correlation of lifespan with parental age at death, smoking cessation
Positive cessation of lifespan with CAD susceptibility, type 2 diabetes