Genetic and socioeconomic study of mate choice in Latinos reveals novel assortment patterns.
Nonrandom mating in human populations has important implications for genetics and medicine as well as for economics and sociology. In this study, we performed an integrative analysis of a large cohort of Mexican and Puerto Rican couples using detailed socioeconomic attributes and genotypes. We found that in ethnically homogeneous Latino communities, partners are significantly more similar in their genomic ancestries than expected by chance. Consistent with this, we also found that partners are more closely related--equivalent to between third and fourth cousins in Mexicans and Puerto Ricans--than matched random male-female pairs. Our analysis showed that this genomic ancestry similarity cannot be explained by the standard socioeconomic measurables alone. Strikingly, the assortment of genomic ancestry in couples was consistently stronger than even the assortment of education. We found enriched correlation of partners' genotypes at genes known to be involved in facial development. We replicated our results across multiple geographic locations. We discuss the implications of assortment and assortment-specific loci on disease dynamics and disease mapping methods in Latinos.
Microsoft Research, Cambridge, MA 02142; Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142; jazo@microsoft.com.
James Y
JY
Zou
Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143;
Danny S
DS
Park
Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143; Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143;
Esteban G
EG
Burchard
Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143; Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143;
Dara G
DG
Torgerson
Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143; Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143;
Maria
M
Pino-Yanes
Computer Science Division, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
Yun S
YS
Song
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115;
Sriram
S
Sankararaman
Blavatnik School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69102, Israel.
Eran
E
Halperin
Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143;
Noah
N
Zaitlen
D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005826:Genetics, Medical; D006579:Heterozygote; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008800:Mexico / Q000208:ethnology; D011647:Puerto Rico / Q000208:ethnology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
assortative mating; genomic ancestry; homogamy