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. 2018 Jan;48(1):1-11.
doi: 10.1007/s10519-017-9872-0. Epub 2017 Oct 17.

An Extended Twin-Pedigree Study of Neuroticism in the Netherlands Twin Register

Dorret I Boomsma  1   2   3 , Quinta Helmer  4 , Harold A Nieuwboer  4 , Jouke Jan Hottenga  4   5 , Marleen H de Moor  5   6 , Stéphanie M van den Berg  7 , Gareth E Davies  8 , Jacqueline M Vink  9 , Maarten J Schouten  4 , Conor V Dolan  4   5 , Gonneke Willemsen  4   5 , Meike Bartels  4   5 , Toos C E M van Beijsterveldt  4 , Lannie Ligthart  4   5 , Eco J de Geus  4   5
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An Extended Twin-Pedigree Study of Neuroticism in the Netherlands Twin Register

Dorret I Boomsma et al. Behav Genet. 2018 Jan.

Abstract

For the participants in the Netherlands Twin Register (NTR) we constructed the extended pedigrees which specify all relations among nuclear and larger twin families in the register. A total of 253,015 subjects from 58,645 families were linked to each other, to the degree that we had information on the relations among participants. We describe the algorithm that was applied to construct the pedigrees. For > 30,000 adolescent and adult NTR participants data were available on harmonized neuroticism scores. We analyzed these data in the Mendel software package (Lange et al., Bioinformatics 29(12):1568-1570, 2013) to estimate the contributions of additive and non-additive genetic factors. In contrast to much of the earlier work based on twin data rather than on extended pedigrees, we could also estimate the contribution of shared household effects in the presence of non-additive genetic factors. The estimated broad-sense heritability of neuroticism was 47%, with almost equal contributions of additive and non-additive (dominance) genetic factors. A shared household effect explained 13% and unique environmental factors explained the remaining 40% of the variance in neuroticism.

Keywords: Extended twin-family design; Genetic non-additivity; Heritability; Netherlands Twin Register; Neuroticism; Pedigree analysis; Shared household effect.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest

Dorret I. Boomsma, Quinta Helmer, Harold A. Nieuwboer, Jouke Jan Hottenga, Marleen H. de Moor, Stéphanie M. van den Berg, Gareth E. Davies, Jacqueline M. Vink, Maarten J. Schouten, Conor V. Dolan, Gonneke Willemsen, Meike Bartels, Toos C. E. M. van Beijsterveldt, Lannie Ligthart, Eco J de Geus declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The studies were approved by the Central Ethics Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects of the VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, an Institutional Review Board certified by the U.S. Office of Human Research Protections (IRB number IRB-2991 under Federal-wide Assurance-3703; IRB/institute codes, NTR 03-180).

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Specification of relations among NTR participants in the PANTER database for a nuclear family of two parents with MZ twin boys, below the specification of this pedigree in the MENDEL input file
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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