Selection against variants in the genome associated with educational attainment

Epidemiological studies suggest that educational attainment is affected by genetic variants. Results from recent genetic studies allow us to construct a score from a person’s genotypes that captures a portion of this genetic component. Using data from Iceland that include a substantial fraction of t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Main Authors: Kong, Augustine, Frigge, Michael L., Thorleifsson, Gudmar, Stefansson, Hreinn, Young, Alexander I., Zink, Florian, Jonsdottir, Gudrun A., Okbay, Aysu, Sulem, Patrick, Masson, Gisli, Gudbjartsson, Daniel F., Helgason, Agnar, Bjornsdottir, Gyda, Thorsteinsdottir, Unnur, Stefansson, Kari
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: National Academy of Sciences 2017
Subjects:
PNAS Plus
Iceland
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5293043/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28096410
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1612113114
Description
Summary:Epidemiological studies suggest that educational attainment is affected by genetic variants. Results from recent genetic studies allow us to construct a score from a person’s genotypes that captures a portion of this genetic component. Using data from Iceland that include a substantial fraction of the population we show that individuals with high scores tend to have fewer children, mainly because they have children later in life. Consequently, the average score has been decreasing over time in the population. The rate of decrease is small per generation but marked on an evolutionary timescale. Another important observation is that the association between the score and fertility remains highly significant after adjusting for the educational attainment of the individuals.

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