WARNING: the interactive features of this website use CSS3, which your browser does not support. To use the full features of this website, please update your browser.
Summary
A mother and her child share half of their genetics in common, and both genomes will have an influence on perinatal traits such as birth weight. This sharing complicates the estimation of small genetic effects, especially when genetic data is not available on both the mother and her child. Therefore, we developed a statistical model to estimate the maternal and child genetic effects on a trait when we have genetic data on the mother and trait data on both herself and her child. We used data from the UK Biobank to estimate the effect of the maternal genetics on her childs birth weight and the childs genetics on their own birth weight. We showed that of the 58 genetic variants we investigated, several had a greater effect on birth weight when they were present in the mother. Additionally, a handful of genetic variants increased birth weight when present in the mother but decreased birth weight when present in her child. This statistical model will help us understand more about the mechanisms underlying the genetic associations with perinatal traits.