Heritability of Gene Expression Measured from Peripheral Blood in Older Adults

SC Kanchibhotla; KA Mather; NJ Armstrong; LG Ciobanu; BT Baune; VS Catts; PR Schofield; JN Trollor; D Ames; PS Sachdev; A Thalamuthu

Journal article

Heritability of Gene Expression Measured from Peripheral Blood in Older Adults

SC Kanchibhotla, KA Mather, NJ Armstrong, LG Ciobanu, BT Baune, VS Catts, PR Schofield, JN Trollor, D Ames, PS Sachdev, A Thalamuthu

Genes | Published : 2024

DOI: 10.3390/genes15040495

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Abstract

The contributions of genetic variation and the environment to gene expression may change across the lifespan. However, few studies have investigated the heritability of blood gene expression in older adults. The current study therefore aimed to investigate this question in a community sample of older adults. A total of 246 adults (71 MZ and 52 DZ twins, 69.91% females; mean age—75.79 ± 5.44) were studied. Peripheral blood gene expression was assessed using Illumina microarrays. A heritability analysis was performed using structural equation modelling. There were 5269 probes (19.9%) from 4603 unique genes (23.9%) (total 26,537 probes from 19,256 genes) that were significantly heritable (mean ..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Bernhard Baune Author

David Ames Author

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Grants

Awarded by National Health and Medical Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

We thank Margaret Wright for her valued contributions to the study. We also thank the participants for their time and generosity in contributing to this research. We acknowledge the contribution of the OATS research team (https://cheba.unsw.edu.au/project/older-australian-twins-study) to this study.