Non-linear interaction between physical activity and polygenic risk score of body mass index in Danish and Russian populations

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Body mass index (BMI) is a highly heritable polygenic trait. It is also affected by various environmental and behavioral risk factors. We used a BMI polygenic risk score (PRS) to study the interplay between the genetic and environmental factors defining BMI. First, we generated a BMI PRS that explained more variance than a BMI genetic risk score (GRS), which was using only genome-wide significant BMI-associated variants (R2 = 13.1% compared to 6.1%). Second, we analyzed interactions between BMI PRS and seven environmental factors. We found a significant interaction between physical activity and BMI PRS, even when the well-known effect of the FTO region was excluded from the PRS, using a small dataset of 6,179 samples. Third, we stratified the study population into two risk groups using BMI PRS. The top 22% of the studied populations were included in a high PRS risk group. Engagement in self-reported physical activity was associated with a 1.66 kg/m2 decrease in BMI in this group, compared to a 0.84 kg/m2 decrease in BMI in the rest of the population. Our results (i) confirm that genetic background strongly affects adult BMI in the general population, (ii) show a non-linear interaction between BMI genetics and physical activity, and (iii) provide a standardized framework for future gene-environment interaction analyses.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0258748
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume16
Issue number10
Number of pages16
ISSN1932-6203
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright: © 2021 Borisevich et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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