Journal
JOURNALS OF GERONTOLOGY SERIES A-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICAL SCIENCES
Volume 71, Issue 6, Pages 740-746Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/gerona/glv081
Keywords
Gait; Heritability; Genome-wide association study
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Human gait is a complex neurological and musculoskeletal function, of which the genetic basis remains largely unknown. To determine the influence of common genetic variants on gait parameters, we studied 2,946 participants of the Rotterdam Study, a population-based cohort of unrelated elderly individuals. We assessed 30 gait parameters using an electronic walkway, which yielded seven independent gait domains after principal component analysis. Genotypes of participants were imputed to the 1,000 Genomes reference panel for generating genetic relationship matrices to estimate heritability of gait parameters, and for subsequent genome-wide association scans (GWASs) to identify specific variants. Gait domains with the highest age- and sex-adjusted heritability were Variability (h (2) = 61%), Rhythm (37%), and Tandem (32%). For other gait domains, heritability estimates attenuated after adjustment for height and weight. Genome-wide association scans identified a variant on 1p22.3 that was significantly associated with single support time, a variable from the Rhythm domain (rs72953990; N = 2,946; beta [SE] = 0.0069 (0.0012), p = 2.30x10(-8)). This variant did not replicate in an independent sample (N = 362; p = .78). In conclusion, human gait has highly heritable components that are explained by common genetic variation, which are partly attributed to height and weight. Collaborative efforts are needed to identify robust single variant associations for the heritable parameters.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available