Genetic predictors of participation in optional components of UK Biobank.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33563987.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-21073-y and PMC identifier 7873270.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Large studies such as UK Biobank are increasingly used for GWAS and Mendelian randomization (MR) studies. However, selection into and dropout from studies may bias genetic and phenotypic associations. We examine genetic factors affecting participation in four optional components in up to 451,306 UK Biobank participants. We used GWAS to identify genetic variants associated with participation, MR to estimate effects of phenotypes on participation, and genetic correlations to compare participation bias across different studies. 32 variants were associated with participation in one of the optional components (P < 6 × 10<sup>-9</sup>), including loci with links to intelligence and Alzheimer's disease. Genetic correlations demonstrated that participation bias was common across studies. MR showed that longer educational duration, older menarche and taller stature increased participation, whilst higher levels of adiposity, dyslipidaemia, neuroticism, Alzheimer's and schizophrenia reduced participation. Our effect estimates can be used for sensitivity analysis to account for selective participation biases in genetic or non-genetic analyses.
Medical subject headings
- Biological Specimen Banks
- Community Participation
- Genetic Predisposition to Disease