Cryptic Relatedness in the Singapore Living Biobank Project

The Singapore Living Biobank is a collection of healthy population-based Chinese and Malay individuals, for the purpose of phenotype recall study of high-impact variant carriers. These individuals are sampled from two studies: Multi-Ethnic Cohort (MEC), and the Singapore Health 2012 (SH2012). The MEC is a population-based cohort initiated in 2007 to investigate the genetic and lifestyle factors that affect the risk of developing chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular outcomes in the three ethnic groups (Chinese, Malays, and Indians). The SH2012 study is a population-based cross-sectional survey conducted in Singapore between 2012 and 2013, with over-sampling of Malays and Indians. Participants in MEC and SH2012 completed a similar set of questionnaire components, health examination, and biochemisty panels. Description of the MEC and SH2012 studies can be found at http://blog.nus.edu.sg/sphs/. We generated whole-exome sequencing data and Illumina OmniExpress array genotyping data for 1,299 Chinese and 1,229 Malays from the Singapore Living Biobank. This study includes a subset of 762 individuals that were found to be closely related (≤3rd degree), including 263 Chinese and 499 Malays.EGA study EGAS00001002619