Professor Yoichiro Kamatani of the Department of Computational Biology and Medical Sciences in the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences played a leading role in the research project.

Abstruct

Assortative mating (AM) is a pattern characterized by phenotypic similarities between mating partners. Detecting the evidence of AM has been challenging due to the lack of large-scale datasets that include phenotypic data on both partners, especially in populations of non-European ancestries. Gametic phase disequilibrium between trait-associated alleles is a signature of parental AM on a polygenic trait, which can be detected even without partner data. Here, using polygenic scores for 81 traits in the Japanese population using BioBank Japan Project genome-wide association studies data (n = 172,270), we found evidence of AM on the liability to type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease, as well as on dietary habits. In cross-population comparison using United Kingdom Biobank data (n = 337,139) we found shared but heterogeneous impacts of AM between populations.

Article

Publication:
Nature Human Behavior

Title:
"Genetic footprints of assortative mating in the Japanese population"

Authors:
Kenichi Yamamoto, Kyuto Sonehara, Shinichi Namba, Takahiro Konuma, Hironori Masuko, Satoru Miyawaki, The BioBank Japan Project, Yoichiro Kamatani, Nobuyuki Hizawa, Keiichi Ozono, Loic Yengo, Yukinori Okada*

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01438-z