So in behaviour genetics, you often hear that genetic effects are mostly linear with few interactions. But in medicine, genetic modifiers are being studied, ie interaction effects?
Also, a piece of jargon I didn’t get, what’s penetrancy?
Penetrance is simply, the odds of developing the disease when carrying the variant. If 100 people carry the variant and 80 of them have disease, then it’s 80% penetrant. Genetic interactions are rare, so they don’t explain lot of variance of a trait or disease susceptibility at a population level. But they do occur and can matter a lot at an individual level. Understanding them is crucial from a drug development perspective.
So in behaviour genetics, you often hear that genetic effects are mostly linear with few interactions. But in medicine, genetic modifiers are being studied, ie interaction effects?
Also, a piece of jargon I didn’t get, what’s penetrancy?
Penetrance is simply, the odds of developing the disease when carrying the variant. If 100 people carry the variant and 80 of them have disease, then it’s 80% penetrant. Genetic interactions are rare, so they don’t explain lot of variance of a trait or disease susceptibility at a population level. But they do occur and can matter a lot at an individual level. Understanding them is crucial from a drug development perspective.