Heritability of 596 lipid species and genetic correlation with cardiovascular traits in the Busselton Family Heart Study [Patient-Oriented and Epidemiological Research]

We report heritabilities and genetic correlations of new lipid species/subclasses, including acylcarnitine (AC), ubiquinone, sulfatide, and oxidized cholesteryl esters. Over 99% of lipid species were significantly heritable (h2: 0.06–0.50) and all lipid classes were significantly heritable (h2: 0.14–0.50). The monohexosylceramide and AC classes had the highest median heritabilities (h2 = 0.43). The largest genetic correlation was between clinical triglycerides and total diacylglycerol (rg = 0.88). We observed novel positive genetic correlations between clinical triglycerides and phosphatidylglycerol species (rg: 0.64–0.82), and HDL-C and alkenylphosphatidylcholine species (rg: 0.45–0.74). Overall, 51% of the 4,768 lipid species-CVD trait genetic correlations were statistically significant after correction for multiple comparisons. This is the largest lipidomic study to address the heritability of lipids and their genetic correlation with CVD traits. Future work includes identifying putative causal genetic variants for lipid species and CVD using genome-wide SNP and whole-genome sequencing data.

Source: The Journal of Lipid Research - March 31, 2020 Category: Lipidology Authors: Cadby, G., Melton, P. E., McCarthy, N. S., Giles, C., Mellett, N. A., Huynh, K., Hung, J., Beilby, J., Dube, M.-P., Watts, G. F., Blangero, J., Meikle, P. J., Moses, E. K. Tags: Patient-Oriented and Epidemiological Research Source Type: research