Genomic and environmental risk factors for cardiometabolic disease in Africans

合作中心(CC)的长期愿景是在非洲建立可持续的研究能力，以了解撒哈拉以南非洲肥胖和相关心脏代谢疾病(CMD)的遗传、表观遗传和环境风险因素之间的相互作用。协调委员会将在威特沃特斯兰德大学(WITS)和国际发展中国家人口及其健康评估网络(INDEPTH)的主持下合并。它将利用现有纵向队列的独特优势，包括南非城市索韦托和农村阿金库尔研究(WITS)，以及肯尼亚、加纳、坦桑尼亚、布基纳法索和南非成熟的INDEPTH人口健康和监测中心。这些中心提供成熟的基础设施、训练有素的现场工作人员、长期的社区参与和详细的纵向表型数据，重点关注肥胖和心脏代谢健康。主要优势是协调各地点的表型，建立在强大的现有队列的基础上，以及代表非洲人口的地理和社会变异性。我们的目标是：1.为非洲大陆的基因组研究建立可持续的基础设施(生物库和实验室)和能力(具有良好特征的种群队列、基因分型和生物信息学)；2.了解来自西非、东部和南非的撒哈拉以南人口的基因组结构，以指导基因组研究(利用无关的个人和家庭三人组进行基因组测序和高通量SNP和CNV阵列，以提高单倍型分析的准确性)；3.考虑到相关的环境和社会背景(农村/城市社区、快速转变的肥胖率、不同的艾滋病毒、结核病和疟疾感染病史)，调查基因组对这些人群体内脂肪分布(BMI、臀围/腰围、皮下和内脏脂肪)的独立和协同贡献。我们将在纵向队列中调查肥胖和脂肪分布对CMD风险的影响。协调委员会将吸收一大批经验丰富的非洲科学家和国际合作者，以确保其愿景的成功。

The long-term vision of the Collaborative Centre (CC) is to build sustainable capacity in Africa for research that leads to an understanding of the interplay between genetic, epigenetic and environmental risk factors for obesity and related cardiometabolic diseases (CMD) in sub-Saharan Africa. The CC will be consolidated under the auspices of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and the International Network for the Demographic Evaluation of Populations and Their Health in Developing Countries (INDEPTH). It will capitalize on the unique strengths of existing longitudinal cohorts, including the urban Soweto and rural Agincourt studies in South Africa (Wits based), and the well established INDEPTH demographic health and surveillance centers in Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and South Africa. The centers offer established infrastructure, trained fieldworkers, long-standing community engagement, and detailed longitudinal phenotypic data, focusing on obesity and cardiometabolic health. Key strengths are harmonized phenotyping across sites, building on strong existing cohorts, and representation of the geographic and social variability of African populations. We aim to: 1. Build sustainable infrastructure (biobanks and laboratories) and capabilities (well characterized population cohorts, genotyping and bioinformatics) for genomic research on the African continent; 2. Understand the genomic architecture of sub-Saharan populations from west, east and south Africa to guide genomic studies (genome sequencing and high throughput SNP and CNV arrays using unrelated individuals and family trios to improve the accuracy of haplotype analyses) and; 3. Investigate the independent and synergistic genomic contributions to body fat distribution (BMI, hip/waist circumference, subcutaneous and visceral fat) in these populations considering the relevant environmental and social contexts (rural/urban communities, quickly transitioning obesity prevalence, differential HIV, TB, and malaria infection histories). We will investigate the effect of obesity and fat distribution on the risk for CMD in the longitudinal cohorts. The CC will draw upon a wide group of highly experienced African scientists and international collaborators to ensure the success of its vision.