MétaCan
Menu
← Back to cohort
Record W4414258706 · doi:10.1101/2025.09.09.25335438

Advancing Human Population Genomics with DNA Foundation Models

2025· preprint· en· W4414258706 on OpenAlexaff
Rui Zhu, Xiaopu Zhou, Marla Mendes de Aquino, Worrawat Engchuan, Hang Zhou, Haoyu Cheng, John Hardy, Haixu Tang, Stephen W. Scherer, Lucila Ohno‐Machado

Bibliographic record

VenuemedRxiv · 2025
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
TopicGenetic Associations and Epidemiology
Canadian institutionsUniversity of TorontoHospital for Sick Children
Fundersnot available
KeywordsGenomicsHuman genetic variationPopulationHaplotypeHuman genomeFunctional genomicsLocus (genetics)Human genetics

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Abstract DNA foundation models offer a new approach to interpret genetic variation, but their potential in population-scale genomics remains untapped. We introduce a novel analytical framework that integrates a genomic foundation model with human population genomics studies. We employed the Evo2 DNA foundation model to systematically score the functional impact of a variant and haplotype across diverse cohorts including people with Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), the Human Pangenome Project, and the UK Biobank. As proof-of-concept, the analysis of the APOE locus confirmed the approach’s validity, with model-derived scores can help to prioritize putatively functional variants and quantify effects of both variants and haplotype onto Alzheimer’s Disease susceptibility or associated endophenotypes, including cognitive performance, brain structural change and amyloid load. Specifically, scoring multi-ancestry assembly sequences from the Human Pangenome Project revealed, for the first time, that genetic variation could nicely explains ancestry-specific differences in APOE expression and the impact of APOE -ε4 on Alzheimer’s disease risk. Overall, this study provides a scalable framework for mapping functional genetic variation, complementing conventional population-genomics approaches, enabling better interpretation of genetic effects in complex genomic regions at population scale.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.010
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.029
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Simulation or modeling · Consensus signal: none
GenreCandidate signal: Methods · Consensus signal: Methods
Teacher disagreement score0.010
Threshold uncertainty score0.050

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0100.029
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.002
Bibliometrics0.0020.002
Science and technology studies0.0010.002
Scholarly communication0.0020.002
Open science0.0020.002
Research integrity0.0010.002
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0050.001

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.018
GPT teacher head0.286
Teacher spread0.269 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designSimulation or modeling
Domainnot available
GenreMethods

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations1
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

Explore more

Same venuemedRxiv→Same topicGenetic Associations and Epidemiology→French-language works237,207→