Abstract

Male pattern baldness (MPB) or androgenetic alopecia is one of the most common conditions affecting men, reaching a prevalence of ~50% by the age of 50; however, the known genes explain little of the heritability. Here, we present the results of a genome-wide association study including more than 70,000 men, identifying 71 independently replicated loci, of which 30 are novel. These loci explain 38% of the risk, suggesting that MPB is less genetically complex than other complex traits. We show that many of these loci contain genes that are relevant to the pathology and highlight pathways and functions underlying baldness. Finally, despite only showing genome-wide genetic correlation with height, pathway-specific genetic correlations are significant for traits including lifespan and cancer. Our study not only greatly increases the number of MPB loci, illuminating the genetic architecture, but also provides a new approach to disentangling the shared biological pathways underlying complex diseases.

Details

Title
GWAS for male-pattern baldness identifies 71 susceptibility loci explaining 38% of the risk
Author
Pirastu, Nicola 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Joshi, Peter K 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; de Vries, Paul S 2 ; Cornelis, Marilyn C 3 ; McKeigue, Paul M 4 ; Keum, NaNa 5 ; Franceschini, Nora 6 ; Colombo, Marco 4 ; Giovannucci, Edward L 7 ; Spiliopoulou, Athina 8 ; Franke, Lude 9   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; North, Kari E 6 ; Kraft, Peter 10 ; Morrison, Alanna C 2 ; Tõnu Esko 11   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Wilson, James F 12   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

1  Centre for Global Health Research, Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland 
2  Human Genetics Center, Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences, School of Public Health, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA 
3  Department of Preventive Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA 
4  Centre for Population Health Sciences, Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland 
5  Department of Food Science and Biotechnology, Dongguk University, Goyang, South Korea; Department of Nutrition, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA 
6  Department of Epidemiology and Carolina Center for Genome Sciences, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA 
7  Department of Nutrition, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA 
8  Centre for Population Health Sciences, Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland; Pharmatics Ltd., Edinburgh, Scotland 
9  Department of Genetics, University Medical Center, Gröningen, The Netherlands 
10  Program in Genetic Epidemiology and Statistical Genetics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA 
11  Estonian Genome Center, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia; Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA 
12  Centre for Global Health Research, Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland; MRC Human Genetics Unit, Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, Scotland 
Pages
1-10
Publication year
2017
Publication date
Nov 2017
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01490-8
ProQuest document ID
1983423974
Copyright
© 2017. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.