Scientists uncover dozens of genetic traits that depend on which parent you inherit them from.
A new study in Nature reveals that some genetic traits are shaped by which parent you inherit them from, identifying over 30 such instances.
Why it matters
- Highlights the importance of considering the parental origin of genetic variants.
- Provides new insights into the genetic basis of traits related to growth and metabolism.
By the numbers
- Over 100,000 individuals analyzed from the UK Biobank.
- More than 30 instances of parent-of-origin effects identified.
- Study included data from the Estonian Biobank and the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study.
The big picture
- Parent-of-origin effects are especially common for traits related to growth and metabolism.
- These effects support the parental conflict hypothesis, which suggests different evolutionary incentives for maternal and paternal genes.
- The study's findings could have implications for understanding complex traits and diseases.
What they're saying
- Comments note that parental imprinting has been known for over a decade, with examples in diseases like Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes.
- The study's innovation lies in its method to infer gene parentage without direct access to parental genomes.
Caveats
- The study focused on individuals of white European ancestry, limiting generalizability.
- The traits examined were mainly physical and metabolic; psychiatric and behavioral traits were not analyzed in detail.
What’s next
- The team plans to explore molecular mechanisms behind these effects.
- Future work may involve transcriptomic and epigenetic studies.
- Researchers hope to extend this line of research to psychiatric traits.