Temporal analysis of the heritability of Lifelines Corona repeated research questionnaire items

Genetic and environmental variation jointly determine (disease) phenotypes. For many complex traits it is not yet known whether the contribution of genetics and of the environment is constant or can change. Through the longitudinal Lifelines Corona Research project we will study questionnaire items that have been repeated, enabling us to determine whether heritability estimates remain constant or change across time.

We aim to determine what is the heritability of different Lifelines Corona Research questionnaire items and ascertain whether the estimated heritability for questionnaire items that have been repeated is constant or can differ. In order to do this we will estimated SNP-based heritability and construct polygenic risk scores for a wide variety of complex traits (e.g. height, BMI, disease, psychological traits), permitting us to correlate these to questionnaire items.  We subsequently will determine per questionnaire item the extent to which we can explain the variance through these polygenic risk scores.

Finally, we will study whether these estimates differ between the various questionnaires. We expect that some of these heritability estimates are context specific, similar to what we have previously observed for genetic variants that affect gene expression (Zhernakova et al, Nature Genetics 2017).

We have prior experience with constructing polygenic risk scores (Vosa et al, BioRXiv 2018) and SNP based heritability estimation.

Nederlandse samenvatting: 
Genetic and environmental variation jointly determine (disease) phenotypes. For many complex traits it is not yet known whether the contribution of genetics and of the environment is constant or can change. Through the longitudinal Lifelines Corona Research project we will study this, permitting us to study questionnaire items that have been repeated, enabling us to determine whether heritability estimates remain constant or change across time.

Engelse samenvatting: 
Genetic and environmental variation jointly determine (disease) phenotypes. For many complex traits it is not yet known whether the contribution of genetics and of the environment is constant or can change. Through the longitudinal Lifelines Corona Research project we will study this, permitting us to study questionnaire items that have been repeated, enabling us to determine whether heritability estimates remain constant or change across time.