Using polygenic risk score approaches to investigate the common-variant genetic architecture of schizophrenia

Abstract

Is this paper we present a summary of our association analyses of schizophrenia polygenic risk score with a number of phenotypes in a large cohort of people from the UK population (N=442,192). We show that individuals with higher genetic loading to schizophrenia who have not been diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders are likely to have some cognitive deficits. Although these deficits may be subtle, they can result in significant effects on educational attainment and professional occupation. We also show that the relationship between schizophrenia liability and fecundity is consistent with sexual selection, with liability in unaffected people being associated with a net increase in fecundity, thereby supporting the persistence of schizophrenia risk alleles.

Keywords

• polygenic risk score, schizophrenia, genome-wide association study