@article {6937, title = {Rare Exome Sequence Variants in CLCN6 Reduce Blood Pressure Levels and Hypertension Risk.}, journal = {Circ Cardiovasc Genet}, volume = {9}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Feb}, pages = {64-70}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Rare genetic variants influence blood pressure (BP).

METHODS AND RESULTS: Whole-exome sequencing was performed on DNA samples from 17 956 individuals of European ancestry and African ancestry (14 497, first-stage discovery and 3459, second-stage discovery) to examine the effect of rare variants on hypertension and 4 BP traits: systolic BP, diastolic BP, pulse pressure, and mean arterial pressure. Tests of ≈170 000 common variants (minor allele frequency, >=1\%; statistical significance, P<=2.9{\texttimes}10(-7)) and gene-based tests of rare variants (minor allele frequency, <1\%; ≈17 000 genes; statistical significance, P<=1.5{\texttimes}10(-6)) were evaluated for each trait and ancestry, followed by multiethnic meta-analyses. In the first-stage discovery, rare coding variants (splicing, stop-gain, stop-loss, nonsynonymous variants, or indels) in CLCN6 were associated with lower diastolic BP (cumulative minor allele frequency, 1.3\%; β=-3.20; P=4.1{\texttimes}10(-6)) and were independent of a nearby common variant (rs17367504) previously associated with BP. CLCN6 rare variants were also associated with lower systolic BP (β=-4.11; P=2.8{\texttimes}10(-4)), mean arterial pressure (β=-3.50; P=8.9{\texttimes}10(-6)), and reduced hypertension risk (odds ratio, 0.72; P=0.017). Meta-analysis of the 2-stage discovery samples showed that CLCN6 was associated with lower diastolic BP at exome-wide significance (cumulative minor allele frequency, 1.1\%; β=-3.30; P=5.0{\texttimes}10(-7)).

CONCLUSIONS: These findings implicate the effect of rare coding variants in CLCN6 in BP variation and offer new insights into BP regulation.

}, issn = {1942-3268}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.115.001215}, author = {Yu, Bing and Pulit, Sara L and Hwang, Shih-Jen and Brody, Jennifer A and Amin, Najaf and Auer, Paul L and Bis, Joshua C and Boerwinkle, Eric and Burke, Gregory L and Chakravarti, Aravinda and Correa, Adolfo and Dreisbach, Albert W and Franco, Oscar H and Ehret, Georg B and Franceschini, Nora and Hofman, Albert and Lin, Dan-Yu and Metcalf, Ginger A and Musani, Solomon K and Muzny, Donna and Palmas, Walter and Raffel, Leslie and Reiner, Alex and Rice, Ken and Rotter, Jerome I and Veeraraghavan, Narayanan and Fox, Ervin and Guo, Xiuqing and North, Kari E and Gibbs, Richard A and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Psaty, Bruce M and Levy, Daniel and Newton-Cheh, Christopher and Morrison, Alanna C} }