论文标题：Genetic evidence for assortative mating on alcohol consumption in the UK Biobank

期刊：Nature communications

作者：Laurence J. Howe, Daniel J. Lawson et.al

发表时间：2019/11/19

数字识别码： 10.1038/s41467-019-12424-x

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本周《自然-通讯》发表的一篇论文Genetic evidence for assortative mating on alcohol consumption in the UK Biobank报告了一种与饮酒水平相关的遗传变异，而这种遗传变异反过来可能与伴侣选择存在关联。

使用酒精伴侣共调的可能解释。

图片来源：Howe等

英国布里斯托大学的Laurence Howe及同事研究了与饮酒相关的遗传变异是否会通过影响酒精行为，来影响伴侣选择。作者使用来自英国生物库（UK Biobank）的47,377对配偶的数据以及他们的自述饮酒情况展开分析，发现个体的rs1229984基因型与其伴侣的饮酒行为相关；rs1229984是基因ADH1B上的位点，ADH1B参与氧化酒精的酶的生产。作者还发现配偶双方更有可能在这个SNP上拥有相同的变异，这意味着饮酒共调可能在双方同居前就已存在。作者提出rs1229984变异会影响酒精相关行为，而这可能对伴侣选择产生下游影响。

作者指出他们难以将此次研究结果外推至非欧洲群体，而且还需要开展进一步的研究来调查其它酒精相关遗传变异，确定报告的关联关系中的因果联系。

摘要：Alcohol use is correlated within spouse-pairs, but it is difficult to disentangle effects of alcohol consumption on mate-selection from social factors or the shared spousal environment. We hypothesised that genetic variants related to alcohol consumption may, via their effect on alcohol behaviour, influence mate selection. Here, we find strong evidence that an individual’s self-reported alcohol consumption and their genotype at rs1229984, a missense variant inADH1B, are associated with their partner’s self-reported alcohol use. Applying Mendelian randomization, we estimate that a unit increase in an individual’s weekly alcohol consumption increases partner’s alcohol consumption by 0.26 units (95% C.I. 0.15, 0.38; P = 8.20 × 10−6). Furthermore, we find evidence of spousal genotypic concordance for rs1229984, suggesting that spousal concordance for alcohol consumption existed prior to cohabitation. Although the SNP is strongly associated with ancestry, our results suggest some concordance independent of population stratification. Our findings suggest that alcohol behaviour directly influences mate selection.

（来源：科学网）