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Genetic markers for ancestry are correlated with body composition traits in older African Americans

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Abstract

Summary

Individual-specific percent European ancestry was assessed in 1,277 African Americans. We found significant correlations between proportion of European ancestry and several musculoskeletal traits, indicating that admixture mapping may be a useful strategy for locating genes affecting these traits.

Introduction

Genotype data for admixed populations can be used to detect chromosomal regions influencing disease risk if allele frequencies at disease-related loci differ between parental populations. We assessed evidence for differentially distributed alleles affecting bone and body composition traits in African Americans.

Methods

Bone mineral density (BMD) and body composition data were collected for 1,277 African and 1,790 European Americans (aged 70–79). Maximum likelihood methods were used to estimate individual-specific percent European ancestry for African Americans genotyped at 37 ancestry-informative genetic markers. Partial correlations between body composition traits and percent European ancestry were calculated while simultaneously adjusting for the effects of covariates.

Results

Percent European ancestry (median = 18.7%) in African Americans was correlated with femoral neck BMD in women (r = −0.18, p < 10−5) and trabecular spine BMD in both sexes (r = −0.18, p < 10−5) independently of body size, fat, lean mass, and other covariates. Significant associations of European ancestry with appendicular lean mass (r = −0.19, p < 10−10), total lean mass (r = −0.12, p < 10−4), and total body fat (r = 0.09, p < 0.002) were also observed for both sexes.

Conclusions

These results indicate that some population differences in body composition may be due to population-specific allele frequencies, suggesting the utility of admixture mapping for identifying susceptibility genes for osteoporosis, sarcopenia, and obesity.

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Acknowledgments and funding

We would like to thank the participants of the Health, Aging, and Body Composition Study. This research was supported in part by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Health, National Institute on Aging (NIH grants: AE-2-1024, N01-AG-6-2101; N01-AG-6-2103; N01-AG-6-2106), and by a Burroughs Wellcome Career Development Award in the Biomedical Sciences to David Reich. The Broad Institute Center for Genotyping and Analysis is supported by grant U54 RR020278-01 from the National Center for Research Resources. We would also like to acknowledge Marco Pahor, Indrani Halder, the Health ABC Publication and Data Analysis Committee, and three anonymous reviewers for their insight and suggestions during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, 130 DeSoto Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15261, USA

    J. R. Shaffer, C. M. Kammerer, A. B. Newman, J. A. Cauley, R. E Ferrell & J. M. Zmuda

  2. Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    D. Reich & G. McDonald

  3. Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

    D. Reich, G. McDonald & N. Patterson

  4. Department of Endocrinology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    B. Goodpaster

  5. University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    D. C. Bauer & J. Li

  6. National Institute of Aging, Bethesda, MD, USA

    T. B. Harris

  7. University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, USA

    F. Tylavsky

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  1. J. R. Shaffer
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  2. C. M. Kammerer
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  3. D. Reich
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  4. G. McDonald
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  5. N. Patterson
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  7. D. C. Bauer
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  8. J. Li
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  9. A. B. Newman
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  10. J. A. Cauley
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  11. T. B. Harris
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  13. R. E Ferrell
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  14. J. M. Zmuda
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for the Health ABC study

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Correspondence to J. R. Shaffer.

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Shaffer, J.R., Kammerer, C.M., Reich, D. et al. Genetic markers for ancestry are correlated with body composition traits in older African Americans. Osteoporos Int 18, 733–741 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00198-006-0316-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00198-006-0316-6

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