Shared genetic architectures of educational attainment in East Asian and European populations

Tzu-Ting Chen; Jaeyoung Kim; Max Lam; Yi-Fang Chuang; Yen-Ling Chiu; Shu-Chin Lin; Sang-Hyuk Jung; Beomsu Kim; Soyeon Kim; Chamlee Cho; Injeong Shim; Sanghyeon Park; Yeeun Ahn; Aysu Okbay; Hyemin Jang; Hee Jin Kim; Sang Won Seo; Woong-Yang Park; Tian Ge; Hailiang Huang; Yen-Chen Anne Feng; Yen-Feng Lin; Woojae Myung; Chia-Yen Chen; Hong-Hee Won

doi:10.1038/s41562-023-01781-9

Shared genetic architectures of educational attainment in East Asian and European populations

Nat Hum Behav. 2024 Mar;8(3):562-575. doi: 10.1038/s41562-023-01781-9. Epub 2024 Jan 5.

Authors

Tzu-Ting Chen^#¹, Jaeyoung Kim^#^{2

3}, Max Lam^{4

5

6

7

8}, Yi-Fang Chuang⁹, Yen-Ling Chiu^{10

11}, Shu-Chin Lin¹, Sang-Hyuk Jung¹², Beomsu Kim², Soyeon Kim^{4

13}, Chamlee Cho², Injeong Shim², Sanghyeon Park², Yeeun Ahn², Aysu Okbay¹⁴, Hyemin Jang^{15

16}, Hee Jin Kim^{15

16}, Sang Won Seo^{15

16}, Woong-Yang Park¹⁷, Tian Ge^{13

18

19}, Hailiang Huang^{4

5

13}, Yen-Chen Anne Feng^{20

21}, Yen-Feng Lin^{22

23

24}, Woojae Myung^{25

26}, Chia-Yen Chen²⁷, Hong-Hee Won^{28

29}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Neuropsychiatric Research, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan.
² Department of Digital Health, Samsung Advanced Institute for Health Sciences and Technology (SAIHST), Sungkyunkwan University, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea.
³ Department of Neuropsychiatry, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, South Korea.
⁴ Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
⁵ Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Human Genetics, Genome Institute of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
⁷ Division of Psychiatry Research, the Zucker Hillside Hospital, Northwell Health, Glen Oaks, NY, USA.
⁸ Research Division Institute of Mental Health Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
⁹ Institute of Public Health and International Health Program, College of Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁰ Graduate Institute of Medicine, Yuan Ze University, Taoyuan City, Taiwan.
¹¹ Department of Medical Research, Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, New Taipei City, Taiwan.
¹² Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
¹³ Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Economics, School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
¹⁵ Departments of Neurology, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
¹⁶ Alzheimer's Disease Convergence Research Center, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea.
¹⁷ Samsung Genome Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
¹⁸ Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁹ Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
²⁰ Institute of Health Data Analytics and Statistics, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei City, Taiwan.
²¹ Institute of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei City, Taiwan.
²² Center for Neuropsychiatric Research, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan. yflin@nhri.edu.tw.
²³ Department of Public Health and Medical Humanities, School of Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan. yflin@nhri.edu.tw.
²⁴ Institute of Behavioral Medicine, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. yflin@nhri.edu.tw.
²⁵ Department of Neuropsychiatry, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, South Korea. wmyung@snu.ac.kr.
²⁶ Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea. wmyung@snu.ac.kr.
²⁷ Biogen, Cambridge, MA, USA. chiayenc@gmail.com.
²⁸ Department of Digital Health, Samsung Advanced Institute for Health Sciences and Technology (SAIHST), Sungkyunkwan University, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea. wonhh@skku.edu.
²⁹ Samsung Genome Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea. wonhh@skku.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

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.

Publication types

Meta-Analysis

MeSH terms

Academic Success*
East Asian People*
Educational Status
Genome-Wide Association Study
Humans
Multifactorial Inheritance / genetics

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

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