Meta-analysis of the heritability of human traits based on fifty years of twin studies
Top Cited Papers
- 18 May 2015
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Nature Genetics
- Vol. 47 (7), 702-709
- https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.3285
Abstract
Despite a century of research on complex traits in humans, the relative importance and specific nature of the influences of genes and environment on human traits remain controversial. We report a meta-analysis of twin correlations and reported variance components for 17,804 traits from 2,748 publications including 14,558,903 partly dependent twin pairs, virtually all published twin studies of complex traits. Estimates of heritability cluster strongly within functional domains, and across all traits the reported heritability is 49%. For a majority (69%) of traits, the observed twin correlations are consistent with a simple and parsimonious model where twin resemblance is solely due to additive genetic variation. The data are inconsistent with substantial influences from shared environment or non-additive genetic variation. This study provides the most comprehensive analysis of the causes of individual differences in human traits thus far and will guide future gene-mapping efforts. All the results can be visualized using the MaTCH webtool.Keywords
This publication has 26 references indexed in Scilit:
- Five Years of GWAS DiscoveryAmerican Journal of Human Genetics, 2012
- The mystery of missing heritability: Genetic interactions create phantom heritabilityProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012
- Progress and Promise of Genome-Wide Association Studies for Human Complex Trait GeneticsGenetics, 2011
- Nature versus Nurture: Death of a Dogma, and the Road AheadNeuron, 2010
- Missing heritability and strategies for finding the underlying causes of complex diseaseNature Reviews Genetics, 2010
- Finding the missing heritability of complex diseasesNature, 2009
- Epistasis — the essential role of gene interactions in the structure and evolution of genetic systemsNature Reviews Genetics, 2008
- Data and Theory Point to Mainly Additive Genetic Variance for Complex TraitsPLoS Genetics, 2008
- Epistasis: too often neglected in complex trait studies?Nature Reviews Genetics, 2004
- Statistical significance for genomewide studiesProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2003