@article {7796, title = {Exome Chip Analysis Identifies Low-Frequency and Rare Variants in for White Matter Hyperintensities on Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging.}, journal = {Stroke}, year = {2018}, month = {2018 Jul 12}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: White matter hyperintensities (WMH) on brain magnetic resonance imaging are typical signs of cerebral small vessel disease and may indicate various preclinical, age-related neurological disorders, such as stroke. Though WMH are highly heritable, known common variants explain a small proportion of the WMH variance. The contribution of low-frequency/rare coding variants to WMH burden has not been explored.

METHODS: In the discovery sample we recruited 20 719 stroke/dementia-free adults from 13 population-based cohort studies within the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology consortium, among which 17 790 were of European ancestry and 2929 of African ancestry. We genotyped these participants at ≈250 000 mostly exonic variants with Illumina HumanExome BeadChip arrays. We performed ethnicity-specific linear regression on rank-normalized WMH in each study separately, which were then combined in meta-analyses to test for association with single variants and genes aggregating the effects of putatively functional low-frequency/rare variants. We then sought replication of the top findings in 1192 adults (European ancestry) with whole exome/genome sequencing data from 2 independent studies.

RESULTS: At 17q25, we confirmed the association of multiple common variants in , , and (<6{\texttimes}10). We also identified a novel association with 2 low-frequency nonsynonymous variants in (lead, rs34136221; =4.5{\texttimes}10) partially independent of known common signal (=1.4{\texttimes}10). We further identified a locus at 2q33 containing common variants in , , and (lead, rs2351524; =1.9{\texttimes}10). Although our novel findings were not replicated because of limited power and possible differences in study design, meta-analysis of the discovery and replication samples yielded stronger association for the 2 low-frequency variants (=2.8{\texttimes}10).

CONCLUSIONS: Both common and low-frequency/rare functional variants influence WMH. Larger replication and experimental follow-up are essential to confirm our findings and uncover the biological causal mechanisms of age-related WMH.

}, issn = {1524-4628}, doi = {10.1161/STROKEAHA.118.020689}, author = {Jian, Xueqiu and Satizabal, Claudia L and Smith, Albert V and Wittfeld, Katharina and Bis, Joshua C and Smith, Jennifer A and Hsu, Fang-Chi and Nho, Kwangsik and Hofer, Edith and Hagenaars, Saskia P and Nyquist, Paul A and Mishra, Aniket and Adams, Hieab H H and Li, Shuo and Teumer, Alexander and Zhao, Wei and Freedman, Barry I and Saba, Yasaman and Yanek, Lisa R and Chauhan, Ganesh and van Buchem, Mark A and Cushman, Mary and Royle, Natalie A and Bryan, R Nick and Niessen, Wiro J and Windham, Beverly G and DeStefano, Anita L and Habes, Mohamad and Heckbert, Susan R and Palmer, Nicholette D and Lewis, Cora E and Eiriksdottir, Gudny and Maillard, Pauline and Mathias, Rasika A and Homuth, Georg and Vald{\'e}s-Hern{\'a}ndez, Maria Del C and Divers, Jasmin and Beiser, Alexa S and Langner, S{\"o}nke and Rice, Kenneth M and Bastin, Mark E and Yang, Qiong and Maldjian, Joseph A and Starr, John M and Sidney, Stephen and Risacher, Shannon L and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Gudnason, Vilmundur G and Nauck, Matthias and Rotter, Jerome I and Schreiner, Pamela J and Boerwinkle, Eric and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Mazoyer, Bernard and von Sarnowski, Bettina and Gottesman, Rebecca F and Levy, Daniel and Sigurdsson, Sigurdur and Vernooij, Meike W and Turner, Stephen T and Schmidt, Reinhold and Wardlaw, Joanna M and Psaty, Bruce M and Mosley, Thomas H and DeCarli, Charles S and Saykin, Andrew J and Bowden, Donald W and Becker, Diane M and Deary, Ian J and Schmidt, Helena and Kardia, Sharon L R and Ikram, M Arfan and Debette, Stephanie and Grabe, Hans J and Longstreth, W T and Seshadri, Sudha and Launer, Lenore J and Fornage, Myriam} }