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The genetics of university success
University success, which includes enrolment in and achievement at university, as well as quality of the university, have all been linked to later earnings, health and wellbeing. However, little is known about the causes and correlates of differences in university-level outcomes. Capitalizing on bot...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6194053/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30337657 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32621-w |
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author | Smith-Woolley, Emily Ayorech, Ziada Dale, Philip S. von Stumm, Sophie Plomin, Robert |
author_facet | Smith-Woolley, Emily Ayorech, Ziada Dale, Philip S. von Stumm, Sophie Plomin, Robert |
author_sort | Smith-Woolley, Emily |
collection | PubMed |
description | University success, which includes enrolment in and achievement at university, as well as quality of the university, have all been linked to later earnings, health and wellbeing. However, little is known about the causes and correlates of differences in university-level outcomes. Capitalizing on both quantitative and molecular genetic data, we perform the first genetically sensitive investigation of university success with a UK-representative sample of 3,000 genotyped individuals and 3,000 twin pairs. Twin analyses indicate substantial additive genetic influence on university entrance exam achievement (57%), university enrolment (51%), university quality (57%) and university achievement (46%). We find that environmental effects tend to be non-shared, although the shared environment is substantial for university enrolment. Furthermore, using multivariate twin analysis, we show moderate to high genetic correlations between university success variables (0.27–0.76). Analyses using DNA alone also support genetic influence on university success. Indeed, a genome-wide polygenic score, derived from a 2016 genome-wide association study of years of education, predicts up to 5% of the variance in each university success variable. These findings suggest young adults select and modify their educational experiences in part based on their genetic propensities and highlight the potential for DNA-based predictions of real-world outcomes, which will continue to increase in predictive power. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6194053 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-61940532018-10-24 The genetics of university success Smith-Woolley, Emily Ayorech, Ziada Dale, Philip S. von Stumm, Sophie Plomin, Robert Sci Rep Article University success, which includes enrolment in and achievement at university, as well as quality of the university, have all been linked to later earnings, health and wellbeing. However, little is known about the causes and correlates of differences in university-level outcomes. Capitalizing on both quantitative and molecular genetic data, we perform the first genetically sensitive investigation of university success with a UK-representative sample of 3,000 genotyped individuals and 3,000 twin pairs. Twin analyses indicate substantial additive genetic influence on university entrance exam achievement (57%), university enrolment (51%), university quality (57%) and university achievement (46%). We find that environmental effects tend to be non-shared, although the shared environment is substantial for university enrolment. Furthermore, using multivariate twin analysis, we show moderate to high genetic correlations between university success variables (0.27–0.76). Analyses using DNA alone also support genetic influence on university success. Indeed, a genome-wide polygenic score, derived from a 2016 genome-wide association study of years of education, predicts up to 5% of the variance in each university success variable. These findings suggest young adults select and modify their educational experiences in part based on their genetic propensities and highlight the potential for DNA-based predictions of real-world outcomes, which will continue to increase in predictive power. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-10-18 /pmc/articles/PMC6194053/ /pubmed/30337657 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32621-w Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Smith-Woolley, Emily Ayorech, Ziada Dale, Philip S. von Stumm, Sophie Plomin, Robert The genetics of university success |
title | The genetics of university success |
title_full | The genetics of university success |
title_fullStr | The genetics of university success |
title_full_unstemmed | The genetics of university success |
title_short | The genetics of university success |
title_sort | genetics of university success |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6194053/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30337657 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32621-w |
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