TwinsUK: The UK Adult Twin Registry Update

Verdi, Serena; Abbasian, Golboo; Bowyer, Ruth C E; Lachance, Geneviève; Yarand, Darioush; Christofidou, Paraskevi; Mangino, Massimo; Menni, Cristina; Bell, Jordana T.; Falchi, Mario; Small, Kerrin S.; Williams, Frances; Hammond, Christopher J; Hart, Deborah; Spector, Timothy D.; Steves, Claire J.

doi:10.1017/thg.2019.65

Cited by 123 publications

(150 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Participants were members of the TwinsUK cohort, the largest UK registry of adult twins. 4 Participants were visited in their home to obtain saliva and serum samples to test for active infection and antibody response. For three months prior to the visit, the majority of participants had completed regular logging of symptoms, via the C-19 Covid Symptom Study app, 5 enabling measurement of antibody response to COVID-19 with regards to clinical symptoms.…”

Section: Study Design and Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimates of the rate of infection and asymptomatic COVID-19 disease in a population sample from SE England

Wells

Doores

Couvreur

et al. 2020

Journal of Infection

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Background: Understanding of the true asymptomatic rate of infection of SARS-CoV-2 is currently limited, as is understanding of the population-based seroprevalence after the first wave of COVID-19 within the UK. The majority of data thus far come from hospitalised patients, with little focus on general population cases, or their symptoms. Methods: We undertook enzyme linked immunosorbent assay characterisation of IgM and IgG responses against SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein and nucleocapsid protein of 431 unselected general-population participants of the TwinsUK cohort from SouthEast England, aged 19-86 (median age 48; 85% female). 382 participants completed prospective logging of 14 COVID-19 related symptoms via the COVID Symptom Study App, allowing consideration of serology alongside individual symptoms, and a predictive algorithm for estimated COVID-19 previously modelled on PCR positive individuals from a dataset of over 2 million. Findings: We demonstrated a seroprevalence of 12% (51 participants of 431). Of 48 seropositive individuals with full symptom data, nine (19%) were fully asymptomatic, and 16 (27%) were asymptomatic for core COVID-19 symptoms: fever, cough or anosmia. Specificity of anosmia for seropositivity was 95%, compared to 88% for fever cough and anosmia combined. 34 individuals in the cohort were predicted to be Covid-19 positive using the App algorithm, and of those, 18 (52%) were seropositive. Interpretation: Seroprevalence amongst adults from London and SouthEast England was 12%, and 19% of seropositive individuals with prospective symptom logging were fully asymptomatic throughout the study. Anosmia demonstrated the highest symptom specificity for SARS-CoV-2 antibody response.

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Section: Study Design and Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimates of the rate of infection and asymptomatic COVID-19 disease in a population sample from SE England

Wells

Doores

Couvreur

et al. 2020

Journal of Infection

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“…The TwinsUK cohort has been described elsewhere (Verdi et al 2019). Participants in the cohort are community dwelling twin pairs, recruited without any specific clinical phenotype.…”

Section: Star Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The urinary tract microbiome in older women exhibits host genetics and environmental influences

Adebayo

Ackermann

Bowyer

et al. 2019

Preprint

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SummaryThe urinary microbiome is a relatively unexplored niche despite the fact that we now know that it is not sterile. Moreover urinary microbes, especially in ageing populations, are associated with morbidity even when infection is subsequently not proven. We present the first large-scale study to explore factors defining urinary microbiome composition in community-dwelling older adult women without clinically active infection. Using 1600 twins, we estimate the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to variation in microbiome using both 16S and shotgun metagenomics. We found that the urinary microbiome is distinct from nearby sites and is unrelated to stool microbiome. Core urinary microbiome taxa were defined. The first component of weighted unifrac was heritable (18%) as were key taxa (e.g Escherichia-Shigella (A>0.15)). Age, menopausal status, prior UTI and host genetics were top among factors defining the urobiome. Increased composition was associated with older age, contrary to previous findings.

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“…TwinsUK cohort. We have analysed a total of 6,032 plasma samples from 2,146 participants of the TwinsUK study, collected at multiple timepoints over a 20 year-period [26]. These included 1,865 individuals sampled at 3 timepoints, 156 individuals sampled at 2 timepoints and 125 individuals sampled only once.…”

Section: Study Populationsmentioning

confidence: 99%