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Epidemiology
Cohort profile
GCAT|Genomes for life: a prospective cohort study of the genomes of Catalonia
  1. Mireia Obón-Santacana1,2,
  2. Mireia Vilardell1,
  3. Anna Carreras1,
  4. Xavier Duran1,
  5. Juan Velasco1,
  6. Iván Galván-Femenía1,
  7. Teresa Alonso1,
  8. Lluís Puig3,
  9. Lauro Sumoy4,
  10. Eric J Duell5,
  11. Manuel Perucho4,
  12. Victor Moreno2,6,7,
  13. Rafael de Cid1
  1. 1 Genomes for Life -GCAT lab Group, Program of Predictive and Personalized Medicine of Cancer (PMPPC), Institute for Health Science Research Germans Trias i Pujol (IGTP), Badalona, Spain
  2. 2 Cancer Prevention and Control Program, Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO-IDIBELL), Hospitalet del Llobregat, Spain
  3. 3 Banc de Sang i Teixits (BST), Barcelona, Spain
  4. 4 Program of Predictive and Personalized Medicine of Cancer (PMPPC), Institute for Health Science Research Germans Trias i Pujol (IGTP), Badalona, Spain
  5. 5 Unit of Nutrition and Cancer, Cancer Epidemiology Research Program, Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO-IDIBELL), Hospitalet del Llobregat, Spain
  6. 6 CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Hospitalet del Llobregat, Madrid, Spain
  7. 7 Department of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
  1. Correspondence to Dr Rafael de Cid; Rdecid{at}igtp.cat

Abstract

Purpose The prevalence of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is increasing worldwide. NCDs are the leading cause of both morbidity and mortality, and it is estimated that by 2030, they will be responsible for 80% of deaths across the world. The Genomes for Life (GCAT) project is a long-term prospective cohort study that was designed to integrate and assess the role of epidemiological, genomic and epigenomic factors in the development of major chronic diseases in Catalonia, a north-east region of Spain.

Participants At the end of 2017, the GCAT Study will have recruited 20 000 participants aged 40–65 years. Participants who agreed to take part in the study completed a self-administered computer-driven questionnaire, and underwent blood pressure, cardiac frequency and anthropometry measurements. For each participant, blood plasma, blood serum and white blood cells are collected at baseline. The GCAT Study has access to the electronic health records of the Catalan Public Healthcare System. Participants will be followed biannually at least 20 years after recruitment.

Findings to date Among all GCAT participants, 59.2% are women and 83.3% of the cohort identified themselves as Caucasian/white. More than half of the participants have higher education levels, 72.2% are current workers and 42.1% are classified as overweight (body mass index ≥25 and <30 kg/m2). We have genotyped 5459 participants, of which 5000 have metabolome data. Further, the whole genome of 808 participants will be sequenced by the end of 2017.

Future plans The first follow-up study started in December 2017 and will end by March 2018. Residences of all subjects will be geocoded during the following year. Several genomic analyses are ongoing, and metabolomic and genomic integrations will be performed to identify underlying genetic variants, as well as environmental factors that influence metabolites.

  • prospective cohort
  • non-communicable diseases
  • complex inheritance
  • genomics
  • follow-up
  • lifestyle
  • medical history
  • spanish cohort
  • catalan population
  • electronic health records
  • WGS
  • GWAS

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018324

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors All authors contributed to feedback of the manuscript. All authors played an important role in implementing the study protocol.Conception and design: RdeC, VM, MP, EJD, MO-S. Development of methodology: RdeC, VM, EJD, AC, MO-S, XD, IG-F, LS, JV, LP. Writing, review and/or revision of the manuscript: MO-S, MV, TA, RdeC, VM, EJD, MP, AC, LS, XD, IG-F. Administrative, technical or material support: MP, RdeC, VM, EJD, AC, MO-S, XD, IG-F, JV, LP. Study supervision: RdeC, VM, MP, EJD, MO-S.

    • Funding This work was supported by Acción de Dinamización del ISCIII-MINECO (ADE 10/00026), by the Ministry of Health of the Generalitat of Catalunya and by Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) (SGR 1269 and 1589) and by the Catalan Government DURSI (grant 2014SGR647). Dr Rafael de Cid is the recipient of a ‘Ramón y Cajal’ (RYC) action (RYC-2011-07822) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. The Project is coordinated by the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), in collaboration with the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), and in partnership with the central Blood and Tissue Bank of Catalonia (BST). IGTP is part of the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Ethics approval The GCAT study was approved by the local Ethics Committee (Germans Trias University Hospital) in 2013.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement One of the GCAT characteristics is that it has an open protocol that will enable future study designs or procedures (i.e., family studies). Epidemiological data and biological samples are available for external researchers. Qualified researchers who fulfill ethical and scientific requirements can submit an application form with their personal information, a brief summary of the project, and specific data/material requested (www.genomesforlife.com/investigadors/daccess-documents/). The GCAT scientific committee will evaluate the proposals. Before sending biological material and/or data, a data/material transfer agreement form will be signed among partners to ensure rights and duties. All information regarding the Ethical Legal Social issues, questionnaire contents and available data can be found at www.genomesforlife.com/investigadors/. The results of the study will be published in international peer-reviewed journals and presented at national and international congresses and conferences. Summary data available could be consulted at http://www.genomesforlife.com/investigadors/en_gcat-summary-aggregate-data/.