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 HuangYen Chen Anne Feng, Yen Feng Lin*, Woojae Myung*, Chia Yen Chen*, Hong Hee Won*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)562-575
Number of pages14
JournalNature Human Behaviour
Volume8
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2024

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