{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,24]],"date-time":"2026-06-24T16:17:13Z","timestamp":1782317833001,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":38,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,29]],"date-time":"2023-09-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1695945600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100007458","name":"Qatar Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100007458","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Nutr."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title><jats:p>Epidemiological studies have consistently revealed that Vitamin D deficiency is most prevalent in Middle Eastern countries. However, research on the impact of genetic loci and polygenic models related to Vitamin D has primarily focused on European populations.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>We conducted the first genome-wide association study to identify genetic determinants of Vitamin D levels in Middle Easterners using a whole genome sequencing approach in 6,047 subjects from the Qatar Biobank (QBB) project. We performed a GWAS meta-analysis, combining the QBB cohort with recent European GWAS data from the UK Biobank (involving 345,923 individuals). Additionally, we evaluated the performance of European-derived polygenic risk scores using UK Biobank data in the QBB cohort.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>Our study identified an association between a variant in a known locus for the group-specific component gene (<jats:italic>GC<\/jats:italic>), specifically rs2298850 (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic>-value = 1.71 \u00d7 10<jats:sup>\u221208<\/jats:sup>, Beta\u2009=\u2009\u22120.1285), and Vitamin D levels. Furthermore, our GWAS meta-analysis identified two novel variants at a known locus on chromosome 11, rs67609747 and rs1945603, that reached the GWAS significance threshold. Notably, we observed a moderately high heritability of Vitamin D, estimated at 18%, compared to Europeans. Despite the lower predictive performance of Vitamin D levels in Qataris compared to Europeans, the European-derived polygenic risk scores exhibited significant links to Vitamin D deficiency risk within the QBB cohort.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title><jats:p>This novel study reveals the genetic architecture contributing to Vitamin D deficiency in the Qatari population, emphasizing the genetic heterogeneity across different populations.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fnut.2023.1242257","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,29]],"date-time":"2023-09-29T16:13:33Z","timestamp":1696004013000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["Genetic determinants of Vitamin D deficiency in the Middle Eastern Qatari population: a genome-wide association study"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"10","author":[{"given":"Nagham Nafiz","family":"Hendi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yasser","family":"Al-Sarraj","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Umm-Kulthum","family":"Ismail Umlai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Karsten","family":"Suhre","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Georges","family":"Nemer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Omar","family":"Albagha","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,29]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1498","DOI":"10.1038\/s41430-020-0558-y","article-title":"Vitamin D deficiency 2.0: an update 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