Testing for non-random mating: evidence for ancestry-related assortative mating in the Framingham heart study.

ABSTRACT: Population stratification leads to a predictable phenomenon-a reduction in the number of heterozygotes compared to that calculated assuming Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE). We show that population stratification results in another phenomenon-an excess in the proportion of spouse-pairs with the same genotypes at all ancestrally informative markers, resulting in ancestrally related positive assortative mating. We use principal components analysis to show that there is evidence of population stratification within the Framingham Heart Study, and show that the first principal component correlates with a North-South European cline. We then show that the first principal component is highly correlated between spouses (r = 0.58, p = 0.0013), demonstrating that there is ancestrally related positive

SUBMITTER: Sebro R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3775670 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature