Clinical utility of polygenic scores for cardiometabolic disease in Arabs
Injeong Shim, Hiroyuki Kuwahara, Ningning Chen, Mais O. Hashem, Lama AlAbdi, Mohamed Abouelhoda, Hong‐Hee Won, Pradeep Natarajan, Patrick T. Ellinor, Amit V. Khera, Xin Gao, Fowzan S. Alkuraya, Akl C. Fahed
Abstract
Abstract Arabs account for 5% of the world population and have a high burden of cardiometabolic disease, yet clinical utility of polygenic risk prediction in Arabs remains understudied. Among 5399 Arab patients, we optimize polygenic scores for 10 cardiometabolic traits, achieving a performance that is better than published scores and on par with performance in European-ancestry individuals. Odds ratio per standard deviation (OR per SD) for a type 2 diabetes score was 1.83 (95% CI 1.74–1.92), and each SD of body mass index (BMI) score was associated with 1.18 kg/m 2 difference in BMI. Polygenic scores associated with disease independent of conventional risk factors, and also associated with disease severity—OR per SD for coronary artery disease (CAD) was 1.78 (95% CI 1.66–1.90) for three-vessel CAD and 1.41 (95% CI 1.29–1.53) for one-vessel CAD. We propose a pragmatic framework leveraging public data as one way to advance equitable clinical implementation of polygenic scores in non-European populations.