fastGxE: Powering genome-wide detection of genotype-environment interactions in biobank studies

TL;DR

fastGxE is a fast and scalable method for detecting gene-environment interactions in large biobank studies, revealing new genetic loci linked to physical traits and blood biomarkers.

Contribution

fastGxE introduces a scalable and efficient genome-wide method for detecting GxE interactions with improved speed and accuracy.

Findings

fastGxE achieves 32.98–126.49 times speed improvements over existing GxE methods.

fastGxE identifies nine genomic loci for physical traits, six of which are novel.

fastGxE uncovers 26 genomic loci for blood biomarkers, 19 of which are novel.

Abstract

Traditional genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have primarily focused on detecting main genotype effects, often overlooking genotype-environment interactions (GxE), which are essential for understanding context-specific genetic effects and refining disease etiology. Here, we present fastGxE, a scalable and effective genome-wide GxE method designed to identify genetic variants that interact with environmental factors to influence traits of interest. fastGxE controls for both polygenic effects and polygenic interaction effects, is robust to the number of environmental factors involved in GxE interactions, and ensures scalability for genome-wide GxE analysis in large biobank studies, achieving speed improvements of 32.98–126.49 times over existing approaches. We illustrate the benefits of fastGxE through extensive simulations and an in-depth analysis of 32 physical traits and 67 blood biomarkers from the UK Biobank. In real data applications, fastGxE identifies nine genomic loci associated with physical traits, including six novel ones, and 26 genomic loci associated with blood biomarkers, 19 of which are novel. The new discoveries highlight the dynamic interplay between genetics and the environment, uncovering potentially clinically significant pathways that could inform personalized interventions and treatment strategies.

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