Journal Article

Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals

Authors

Publication date

Jul 2018

Summary

Here we conducted a large-scale genetic association analysis of educational attainment in a sample of approximately 1.1 million individuals and identify 1,271 independent genome-wide-significant SNPs. For the SNPs taken together, we found evidence of heterogeneous effects across environments. The SNPs implicate genes involved in brain-development processes and neuron-to-neuron communication. In a separate analysis of the X chromosome, we identify 10 independent genome-wide-significant SNPs and estimate a SNP heritability of around 0.3% in both men and women, consistent with partial dosage compensation. A joint (multi-phenotype) analysis of educational attainment and three related cognitive phenotypes generates polygenic scores that explain 11–13% of the variance in educational attainment and 7–10% of the variance in cognitive performance. This prediction accuracy substantially increases the utility of polygenic scores as tools in research.

Published in

Nature Genetics

Volume and page numbers

50 , 1112 -1121

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-018-0147-3

ISSN

16

Subjects

Education, Biology, and Genetics

Links

University of Essex, Albert Sloman Library Periodicals (except current 12 months) *restricted to University of Essex registered users* - http://serlib0.essex.ac.uk/record=b1680801~S5

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