Heritability of retinal vascular fractals: a twin study

Anna Stage Vergmann, Rebecca Broe, Line Kessel, Jesper Leth Hougaard, Sören Möller, Kirsten Ohm Kyvik, Michael Larsen, Inger Christine Munch, Jakob Grauslund

Publikation: Konferencebidrag uden forlag/tidsskriftPosterForskningpeer review

Abstract

Purpose:
To determine the genetic contribution to the pattern of retinal vascular branching expressed by its fractal dimension.

Methods:
This was a cross-sectional study of 50-degree, disc-centred fundus photographs from 59 monozygotic and 55 dizygotic, same-sex twin pairs aged 20-46 years. The retinal vascular fractal dimension was measured using the box-counting method and compared within monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs using Pearson correlation coefficents. Falconer´s formula and quantitative genetic models were used to determine the genetic component of variation.

Results:
The retinal vascular fractal dimensions were measurable for both twins in 50 monozygotic and 49 dizygotic twin pairs. The mean fractal dimension did not differ statistically significantly between monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs (1.505 vs. 1.495, p=0.06), supporting that the study population was suitable for quantitative analysis of heritability. The intrapair correlation was markedly higher (0.505, p=0.0002) in monozygotic twins than in dizygotic twins (0.108, p=0.46), corresponding to a heritability h2 for the fractal dimension of 0.79. In quantitative genetic models, 54% of the variation was explained by dominant genetic effects and 46% was individually environmentally determined.

Conclusion:
In young adult twins, the branching pattern of the retinal vessels demonstrated a higher structural similarity in monozygotic than in dizygotic twin pairs. The retinal vascular fractal dimension was mainly determined by genetic factors, which accounted for 54% of the variation. The genetically predetermination of the
OriginalsprogEngelsk
Publikationsdato7. maj 2017
Antal sider1
StatusUdgivet - 7. maj 2017
BegivenhedAssociation for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Annual Meeting 2017 - Baltimore, USA
Varighed: 7. maj 201711. maj 2017

Konference

KonferenceAssociation for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Annual Meeting 2017
Land/OmrådeUSA
ByBaltimore
Periode07/05/201711/05/2017

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