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Evidence for sex-specific genetic architectures across a spectrum of human complex traits

Overview of attention for article published in Genome Biology, July 2016
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (88th percentile)
  • Average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source

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Title
Evidence for sex-specific genetic architectures across a spectrum of human complex traits
Published in
Genome Biology, July 2016
DOI 10.1186/s13059-016-1025-x
Pubmed ID
Authors

Konrad Rawlik, Oriol Canela-Xandri, Albert Tenesa

Abstract

Sex differences are a common feature of human traits; however, the role sex determination plays in human genetic variation remains unclear. The presence of gene-by-sex (GxS) interactions implies that trait genetic architecture differs between men and women. Here, we show that GxS interactions and genetic heterogeneity among sexes are small but common features of a range of high-level complex traits. We analyzed 19 complex traits measured in 54,040 unrelated men and 59,820 unrelated women from the UK Biobank cohort to estimate autosomal genetic correlations and heritability differences between men and women. For 13 of the 19 traits examined, there is evidence that the trait measured is genetically different between males and females. We find that estimates of genetic correlations, based on ~114,000 unrelated individuals and ~19,000 related individuals from the same cohort, are largely consistent. Genetic predictors using a sex-specific model that incorporated GxS interactions led to a relative improvement of up to 4 % (mean 1.4 % across all relevant phenotypes) over those provided by a sex-agnostic model. This further supports the hypothesis of the presence of sexual genetic heterogeneity across high-level phenotypes. The sex-specific environment seems to play a role in changing genotype expression across a range of human complex traits. Further studies of GxS interactions for high-level human traits may shed light on the molecular mechanisms that lead to biological differences between men and women. However, this may be a challenging endeavour due to the likely small effects of the interactions at individual loci.

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X Demographics

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 102 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Finland 1 <1%
United States 1 <1%
Italy 1 <1%
Unknown 99 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 30 29%
Student > Ph. D. Student 25 25%
Student > Bachelor 8 8%
Professor 7 7%
Other 5 5%
Other 10 10%
Unknown 17 17%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 32 31%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 25 25%
Medicine and Dentistry 7 7%
Computer Science 3 3%
Neuroscience 3 3%
Other 13 13%
Unknown 19 19%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 March 2023.
All research outputs
#2,428,708
of 25,374,917 outputs
Outputs from Genome Biology
#1,968
of 4,467 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#43,604
of 380,298 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Genome Biology
#28
of 55 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,374,917 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,467 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 27.6. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 55% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 380,298 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 55 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 49th percentile – i.e., 49% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.