Genomic imprinting analyses identify maternal effects as a cause of phenotypic variability in type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis

Inga Blunk, Hauke Thomsen, Norbert Reinsch, Manfred Mayer, Asta Försti, Jan Sundquist, Kristina Sundquist, Kari Hemminki

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11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Imprinted genes, giving rise to parent-of-origin effects (POEs), have been hypothesised to affect type 1 diabetes (T1D) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, maternal effects may also play a role. By using a mixed model that is able to simultaneously consider all kinds of POEs, the importance of POEs for the development of T1D and RA was investigated in a variance components analysis. The analysis was based on Swedish population-scale pedigree data. With P = 0.18 (T1D) and P = 0.26 (RA) imprinting variances were not significant. Explaining up to 19.00% (± 2.00%) and 15.00% (± 6.00%) of the phenotypic variance, the maternal environmental variance was significant for T1D (P = 1.60 × 10−24) and for RA (P = 0.02). For the first time, the existence of maternal genetic effects on RA was indicated, contributing up to 16.00% (± 3.00%) of the total variance. Environmental factors such as the social economic index, the number of offspring, birth year as well as their interactions with sex showed large effects.

Original languageEnglish
Article number11562
JournalScientific Reports
Volume10
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Dec 2020

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