The Mexico City Prospective Study is a collaboration between the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and Oxford Population Health. It includes data from over 150,000 Mexican adults who were recruited between 1998 and 2004. Participants provided information about their lifestyles and disease history, had physical measurements recorded, and provided blood samples. A resurvey of 10,000 surviving participants captured how lifestyles, physical and biological measurements, and treatments for disease, had changed over time.
Genetic data were made available to researchers in Mexico on 1 May 2023 thanks to a collaboration with DNAnexus and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Researchers worldwide can now apply to access these data, available exclusively via the secure cloud platform built and managed by DNAnexus, to advance their research into how social, lifestyle, physical, metabolic, and genetic factors influence health outcomes in Mexican adults.
Professor Jesús Alegre-Díaz, Professor of Epidemiology at UNAM and Study Principal Investigator said ‘Extended access to the genetic data collected by the Mexico City Prospective Study will advance medical research in Mexico and help to solve some of the most pressing health challenges faced by the world today. Researchers worldwide now have a unique opportunity to access data from individuals of non-European ancestry. This is a major contribution towards increasing diversity in genetic studies.’
People with Latino ethnic backgrounds make up less than 1% of all individuals included in genetic research, despite representing 10% of the global population. To help bridge this gap, the study team generated genotype and exome-sequencing data for 140,000 participants in the study and produced whole-genome sequencing data for 9,950 participants.
Professor Jonathan Emberson, Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at Oxford Population Health and UK Principal Investigator for the Mexico City Prospective Study, said ‘MCPS is one of the largest blood-based prospective studies in a Latin-American population, and represents one of the most extensive sequencing studies in individuals of non-European ancestry.
‘We’re delighted that data from the study will now be available to a broader range of researchers from different countries. The information is rich and vital, an invaluable resource for improving our understanding of how disease affects different populations and supporting the development of healthcare policies and treatments that could benefit a wider range of people.’
Thomas Laur, Chief Executive Officer of DNAnexus, said ‘Genomic datasets are too large and complex for most organisations to efficiently manage, process and analyse. Our cloud-based precision health platform was purpose-built to address these challenges by enabling researchers from around the world to securely and compliantly collaborate and analyse multi-omic datasets at scale. At DNAnexus we are committed to making precision health available to all, which is why we are proud to be the platform powering this critically important initiative that promises to advance the representation of Latin-American populations across the healthcare continuum going forward.’
Previous major findings from the study include the much larger than expected effect of diabetes on premature death, and the discovery of rare genetic mutations that are associated with protection against obesity.
Mashaal Sohail, Associate Professor at the UNAM Centre for Genomic Sciences, said ‘We have been accessing the Mexico City Prospective Study dataset through DNAnexus for multiple projects to understand the genetic architecture of complex traits and diseases in Mexico, the interactions between genotype and environmental factors, and the role of archaic introgression in Mexicans and their trait variation.
‘The server provides an excellent resource to work with such a large dataset and to streamline genetic analyses. Moreover, the Mexico City Prospective Study and DNAnexus teams have also held workshops to help with training the students for effective use of the dataset and best practices on the platform.’
Researchers are able to apply for access to the Mexico City Prospective Study genetic data on the DNAnexus platform. Access to this data is not available to researchers from commercial organisations. To find out more about accessing any data from the Mexico City Prospective Study, and how the study protects participant data and helps to build research capacity, visit the study webpages.