A study of genetic variants associated with skin traits in the Vietnamese population

Background Most skin-related traits have been studied from Caucasian genetic background. A comprehensive study on skin-associated genetic effects on under-represented populations like Vietnam is needed to fill the gaps in the field. Objectives To develop a computational pipeline to predict the effect of genetic factors on skin traits using public data (GWAS catalogs and whole genome sequencing (WGS) data of 1000 genomes project-1KGP) and in-house Vietnamese data (WGS and genotyping by SNP array). By using this information we may have a better understanding of the susceptibility of Vietnamese people. Methods Vietnamese cohorts of whole genome sequencing (WGS) of 1008 healthy individuals for the reference and 96 genotyping samples (which do not have any skin cutaneous issues) by Infinium Asian Screening Array-24 v1.0 BeadChip were employed to predict skin-associated genetic variants of 25 skin-related and micronutrients requirement traits in population analysis and correlation analysis. Simultaneously, we compared the landscape of cutaneous issues of Vietnamese people with other populations by assessing their genetic profiles. Results The skin-related genetic profile of Vietnamese cohorts is similar at most with East Asian (JPT: Fst=0.036, CHB: Fst=0.031, CHS: Fst=0.027, CDX: Fst=0.025) in the population study. In addition, we identified pairs of skin traits being at high risk of frequent co-occurrence (such as skin aging and wrinkles (r = 0.45, p =1.50e-5) or collagen degradation and moisturizing (r = 0.35, p = 1.1e-3). Conclusion This is the first investigation in Vietnam to explore genetic variants of facial skin. These findings could improve inadequate skin-related genetic diversity in the currently published database.