| 1. |
- Kanoni, Stavroula, et al.
(författare)
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Implicating genes, pleiotropy, and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multi-ancestry meta-analysis.
- 2022
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Ingår i: Genome biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1474-760X .- 1465-6906 .- 1474-7596. ; 23:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Genetic variants within nearly 1000 loci are known to contribute to modulation of blood lipid levels. However, the biological pathways underlying these associations are frequently unknown, limiting understanding of these findings and hindering downstream translational efforts such as drug target discovery.To expand our understanding of the underlying biological pathways and mechanisms controlling blood lipid levels, we leverage a large multi-ancestry meta-analysis (N=1,654,960) of blood lipids to prioritize putative causal genes for 2286 lipid associations using six gene prediction approaches. Using phenome-wide association (PheWAS) scans, we identify relationships of genetically predicted lipid levels to other diseases and conditions. We confirm known pleiotropic associations with cardiovascular phenotypes and determine novel associations, notably with cholelithiasis risk. We perform sex-stratified GWAS meta-analysis of lipid levels and show that 3-5% of autosomal lipid-associated loci demonstrate sex-biased effects. Finally, we report 21 novel lipid loci identified on the X chromosome. Many of the sex-biased autosomal and X chromosome lipid loci show pleiotropic associations with sex hormones, emphasizing the role of hormone regulation in lipid metabolism.Taken together, our findings provide insights into the biological mechanisms through which associated variants lead to altered lipid levels and potentially cardiovascular disease risk.
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| 2. |
- Chen, Zeyuan
(författare)
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Getting old in a changing world : Sons, pension, and the wellbeing of the elderly in contemporary China
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Chinese population is rapidly aging, which has brought challenges for the elderly support system. Until very recently, only urban employees were eligible to receive a pension, while the rural elderly were forced to rely on income from their own labor and support from their family. In these circumstances, it is unsurprising that the rural elderly were most likely to fall into poverty. The recent introduction of the New Rural Social Pension represents a fundamental change, as it offer a comprehensive pension to rural Chinese for the first time in its history. The initiative may reduce the need for family support. Son preference is well-established in China as, traditionally, sons are expected to be mainly responsible for taking care of their elderly parents. As the new pension relieves the elderly’s economic dependency on their children, it becomes relevant to ask whether it has mediated the implications of son preference, notably whether having a son still results in a better later life. This dissertation explores how changes in intergenerational support have affected the elderly’s wellbeing. The results show that the new pension has made it possible for the rural elderly to retire and improved their relative bargaining power within the household – allowing them to spend more on healthcare. The treatment effect of the pension is remarkably strong given the small amount of benefit (9 USD per month). This indicates that the rural elderly had been living in very poor conditions, and suggests that the family support system cannot adequately provide for them. It appears that better public support is required.Another finding concerns the situation within the family. My results show that having a son does not improve either material support or subjective wellbeing. It therefore appears that young parents’ son preference does not turn out to be a rational choice in later life. Moreover, the expansion of social welfare has weakened the economic rational of favoring sons, and increased the importance of daughters, as parents’ needs shift from day-to-day care to emotional support. Once basic material needs are met, daughters’ have the advantage of providing emotional support, and they become essential to their parents.
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| 3. |
- Chen, Zeyuan, et al.
(författare)
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Labor Supply Responses to New Rural Pension Insurances in China: A Regression Discontinuity Approach
- 2015
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Transitioning into retirement is an under-researched phenomenon in developing countries. Largely, this is linked to a predominance of contexts where –in particular –the rural population remains outside the coverage of any formal pension system. In 2008, China introduced the New Rural Social Pension (NRSP), a program which by now covers the majority of the Chinese rural elderly. This paper examines the effects of the NRSP on the labor supply of the elderly in rural China. As pension benefit eligibility at the time of its implementation is conditional on age, a regression discontinuity design is applied to investigate the casual effect of the receipt of pension benefits on labor supply. Furthermore, as the NRSP isneither means-tested nor conditions on retirement, it induces a pure income effect on employment. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative data set, we find that the receipt of pension benefitsincreases the probability of retirement among the rural elderly by around 15%.
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| 4. |
- Chen, Zeyuan, et al.
(författare)
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Survival in the Tropics despite isolation, inbreeding and asexual reproduction : insights from the genome of the world's southernmost poplar (Populus ilicifolia)
- 2020
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Ingår i: The Plant Journal. - : Wiley. - 0960-7412 .- 1365-313X. ; 103:1, s. 430-442
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Species are becoming extinct at unprecedented rates as a consequence of human activity. Hence it is important to understand the evolutionary dynamics of species with already small population sizes. Populus ilicifolia is a vulnerable poplar species that is isolated from other poplar species and is uniquely adapted to the Tropics. It has a very limited size, reproduces partly clonally and is therefore an excellent case study for conservation genomics. We present here the first annotated draft genome of P. ilicifolia, characterize genome-wide patterns of polymorphisms and compare those to other poplar species with larger natural ranges. P. ilicifolia experienced a more prolonged and severe decline of effective population size (Ne) and signs of genetic erosion than any other poplar species with which it was compared. At present, the species has the lowest genome-wide genetic diversity, the highest abundance of long runs of homozygosity, high inbreeding levels as well as a high overall accumulation of deleterious variants. However, more effective purging of severely deleterious variants and adaptation to the Tropics may have contributed to its survival. Hence, in spite of its limited genetic variation, it is certainly worth pursuing the conservation efforts of this unique species.
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