Polygenic Score (PGS) study

PSG-StudyPolygenic Score (PGS) study aims to capture an individual genetic predisposition to behavioural, emotional and health-related traits using the data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA).

Many complex health outcomes and behaviours are highly polygenic implying that their genetic architecture consists of multiple variants that can be aggregated into individual polygenic scores (PGS). PGSs can then be used for identifying shared aetiology among traits, testing for genome-wide Gene x Environment interaction and Gene x Gene interactions, performing Mendelian Randomisation studies to infer causal relationships, and for patient stratification and sub-phenotyping. Thus, polygenic scores represent not only an individual genetic predictions of phenotypes but open possibilities for interrogating a wide range of hypotheses via association testing. To facilitate use of these scores for research, ELSA has created a set of PGS for public distribution. This work is funded by the National Institute on Aging.

Principal Investigator: Professor Andrew Steptoe

Contact: Dr Olesya Ajnakina