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National Institute on Aging (NIA) SardiNIA Study

Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean and constitutes a genetically isolated founder population. This population has aided in the identification of genes involved in several Mendelian disorders and is attractive for genetic studies due to its organization in long-established settlements that developed from an initial group of founder settlers (~1,000) thousands of years ago. The current study has recruited 6,148 Sardinians aged 14 and older, from a cluster of four towns in the Lanusei Valley in the Ogliastra region of the province of Nuoro. This sample corresponds to approximately 62% of the population eligible in the area for recruitment. Information collected during enrollment allowed the individuals to be organized into 711 complex pedigrees, each up to five generations deep, with an average kinship coefficient of 0.1628. All volunteers have been characterized for 98 quantitative traits. Traits include anthropomorphic measures, plasma and serum markers (including cholesterol and other markers of cardiovascular disease), and personality traits (using the five-factor model).

The main goal of the study is to examine phenotypic similarities between relatives that yield information on the overall contributions of genes to trait variability. Data given here provide p-values for 98 traits studied in 1,412 individuals, based on genotyping with the Affymetrix 500K chip and imputed markers using the HapMap population as a reference (N=2,259,179). Sharing this genome assessment data at high level of resolution for a variety of quantitative traits will be useful for other groups to validate newly observed associations and to investigate possible pleiotropic effects.

For ulterior information, and in particular for any individual genotype information, a formal request should be addressed to the Steering Committee, c/o David Schlessinger, Chief, Laboratory of Genetics, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, NIH Biomedical Research Center, 251 Bayview Blvd., Suite 100 Baltimore, MD 21224 USA and should include IRB approval of a detailed proposal, along with a signed statement guaranteeing that no attempt will be made to identify any individual participant.