'Racial' differences in genetic effects for complex diseases

@article{Ioannidis2004a, abstract = {Racial' differences are frequently debated in clinical, epidemiological and molecular research and beyond1, 2. In particular, there is considerable controversy regarding the existence and importance of 'racial' differences in genetic effects for complex diseases3, 4, 5, 6 influenced by a large number of genes7. An important question is whether ancestry influences the impact of each gene variant on the disease risk. Here, we addressed this question by examining the genetic effects for 43 validated gene-disease associations across 697 study populations of various descents. The frequencies of the genetic marker of interest in the control populations often (58\%) showed large heterogeneity (statistical variability) between 'races'. Conversely, we saw large heterogeneity in the genetic effects (odds ratios) between 'races' in only 14\% of cases. Genetic markers for proposed gene-disease associations vary in frequency across populations, but their biological impact on the risk for common diseases may usually be consistent across traditional 'racial' boundaries.}, author = {Ioannidis, John P. A. and Ntzani, Evangelia E. and Trikalinos, Thomas A. }, citeulike-article-id = {1723}, doi = {10.1038/ng1474}, journal = {Nature Genetics}, keywords = {association, common-disease-common-variant, complex-disease, population-structure, race}, month = {November}, number = {12}, pages = {1312+}, posted-at = {2007-09-04 20:24:24}, priority = {2}, title = {'Racial' differences in genetic effects for complex diseases}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng1474}, volume = {36}, year = {2004} }

TY - JOUR ID - Ioannidis2004a L3 - citeulike-article-id:1723 TI - 'Racial' differences in genetic effects for complex diseases JF - Nature Genetics VL - 36 IS - 12 SP - 1312 N2 - Racial' differences are frequently debated in clinical, epidemiological and molecular research and beyond1, 2. In particular, there is considerable controversy regarding the existence and importance of 'racial' differences in genetic effects for complex diseases3, 4, 5, 6 influenced by a large number of genes7. An important question is whether ancestry influences the impact of each gene variant on the disease risk. Here, we addressed this question by examining the genetic effects for 43 validated gene-disease associations across 697 study populations of various descents. The frequencies of the genetic marker of interest in the control populations often (58%) showed large heterogeneity (statistical variability) between 'races'. Conversely, we saw large heterogeneity in the genetic effects (odds ratios) between 'races' in only 14% of cases. Genetic markers for proposed gene-disease associations vary in frequency across populations, but their biological impact on the risk for common diseases may usually be consistent across traditional 'racial' boundaries. KW - association KW - common-disease-common-variant KW - complex-disease KW - population-structure KW - race AU - Ioannidis, John AU - Ntzani, Evangelia AU - Trikalinos, Thomas PY - 2004/11/14/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng1474 ER -