Genome-wide genetic ancestry measurements to predict lung function in European populations

Abstract

To the Editor: A number of models have been proposed to predict spirometric lung function using age, sex, height and self-reported ethnicity [1, 2]. These models are particularly important to derive per cent predicted lung function and establish the severity of lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) [3]. Compared to self-reported race and/or ethnicity, genetic data can provide more accurate and objective measurements of ancestry and has the potential to alleviate some of the problems related to the lack of consensus on the definition of race and ethnicity worldwide [4]. A recent report suggested that genetically determined ancestry improves predicted lung-function measurements in African Americans [5]. Here, we test whether genetic ancestry derived from genome-wide genotyping data is useful to predict lung function in a diverse European population. The population used in this study is part of a lung expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) mapping study [6, 7]. Briefly, research participants were recruited from three academic sites: Laval University (Quebec, QC, Canada), University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC, Canada), and Groningen University (Groningen, the Netherlands), henceforth referred to as Laval, UBC, and Groningen, respectively. All subjects were genotyped for ∼1.2 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using the Illumina Human1M-Duo BeadChip (Illumina, Inc., San Diego, CA, USA). Subjects from Laval and UBC provided written informed consent and the study was approved by the ethics committees of the respective study sites. At Groningen, the study protocol was consistent with the research code of the University Medical Center Groningen and Dutch national ethical and professional guidelines (“Code of conduct; Dutch federation of biomedical scientific societies”; http://www.federa.org). Prior to the analysis, standard genotyping quality controls and exclusion of patients with disorders that affected lung function (other than COPD) were …