@article {9007, title = {Identification of Functional Genetic Determinants of Cardiac Troponin T and I in a Multiethnic Population and Causal Associations With Atrial Fibrillation.}, journal = {Circ Genom Precis Med}, volume = {14}, year = {2021}, month = {2021 12}, pages = {e003460}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Elevated cardiac troponin levels in blood are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and mortality. Cardiac troponin levels are heritable, but their genetic architecture remains elusive.

METHODS: We conducted a transethnic genome-wide association analysis on high-sensitivity cTnT (cardiac troponin T; hs-cTnT) and high-sensitivity cTnI (cardiac troponin I; hs-cTnI) levels in 24 617 and 14 336 participants free of coronary heart disease and heart failure from 6 population-based cohorts, followed by a series of bioinformatic analyses to decipher the genetic architecture of hs-cTnT and hs-cTnI.

RESULTS: We identified 4 genome-wide significant loci for hs-cTnT including a novel locus rs3737882 in and 3 previously reported loci at , , and . One known locus at was replicated for hs-cTnI. One copy of C allele for rs3737882 was associated with a 6\% increase in hs-cTnT levels (minor allele frequency, 0.18; =2.80{\texttimes}10). We observed pleiotropic loci located at and . The proportions of variances explained by single-nucleotide polymorphisms were 10.15\% and 7.74\% for hs-cTnT and hs-cTnI, respectively. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms were colocalized with expression in heart tissues and hs-cTnT and with expression in artery, heart tissues, and whole blood and both troponins. Mendelian randomization analyses showed that genetically increased hs-cTnT and hs-cTnI levels were associated with higher odds of atrial fibrillation (odds ratio, 1.38 [95\% CI, 1.25-1.54] for hs-cTnT and 1.21 [95\% CI, 1.06-1.37] for hs-cTnI).

CONCLUSIONS: We identified a novel genetic locus associated with hs-cTnT in a multiethnic population and found that genetically regulated troponin levels were associated with atrial fibrillation.

}, issn = {2574-8300}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCGEN.121.003460}, author = {Yang, Yunju and Bartz, Traci M and Brown, Michael R and Guo, Xiuqing and Zilh{\~a}o, Nuno R and Trompet, Stella and Weiss, Stefan and Yao, Jie and Brody, Jennifer A and deFilippi, Christopher R and Hoogeveen, Ron C and Lin, Henry J and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Ballantyne, Christie M and D{\"o}rr, Marcus and Jukema, J Wouter and Petersmann, Astrid and Psaty, Bruce M and Rotter, Jerome I and Boerwinkle, Eric and Fornage, Myriam and Jun, Goo and Yu, Bing} } @article {9184, title = {Epigenetic and integrative cross-omics analyses of cerebral white matter hyperintensities on MRI.}, journal = {Brain}, year = {2022}, month = {2022 Aug 09}, abstract = {

Cerebral white matter hyperintensities on MRI are markers of cerebral small vessel disease, a major risk factor for dementia and stroke. Despite the successful identification of multiple genetic variants associated with this highly heritable condition, its genetic architecture remains incompletely understood. More specifically, the role of DNA methylation has received little attention. We investigated the association between white matter hyperintensity burden and DNA methylation in blood at approximately 450,000 CpG sites in 9,732 middle-aged to older adults from 14 community-based studies. Single-CpG and region-based association analyses were carried out. Functional annotation and integrative cross-omics analyses were performed to identify novel genes underlying the relationship between DNA methylation and white matter hyperintensities. We identified 12 single-CpG and 46 region-based DNA methylation associations with white matter hyperintensity burden. Our top discovery single CpG, cg24202936 (P = 7.6 {\texttimes} 10-8), was associated with F2 expression in blood (P = 6.4 {\texttimes} 10-5), and colocalized with FOLH1 expression in brain (posterior probability =0.75). Our top differentially methylated regions were in PRMT1 and in CCDC144NL-AS1, which were also represented in single-CpG associations (cg17417856 and cg06809326, respectively). Through Mendelian randomization analyses cg06809326 was putatively associated with white matter hyperintensity burden (P = 0.03) and expression of CCDC144NL-AS1 possibly mediated this association. Differentially methylated region analysis, joint epigenetic association analysis, and multi-omics colocalization analysis consistently identified a role of DNA methylation near SH3PXD2A, a locus previously identified in genome-wide association studies of white matter hyperintensities. Gene set enrichment analyses revealed functions of the identified DNA methylation loci in the blood-brain barrier and in the immune response. Integrative cross-omics analysis identified 19 key regulatory genes in two networks related to extracellular matrix organization, and lipid and lipoprotein metabolism. A drug repositioning analysis indicated antihyperlipidemic agents, more specifically peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha, as possible target drugs for white matter hyperintensities. Our epigenome-wide association study and integrative cross-omics analyses implicate novel genes influencing white matter hyperintensity burden, which converged on pathways related to the immune response and to a compromised blood brain barrier possibly due to disrupted cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix interactions. The results also suggest that antihyperlipidemic therapy may contribute to lowering risk for white matter hyperintensities possibly through protection against blood brain barrier disruption.

}, issn = {1460-2156}, doi = {10.1093/brain/awac290}, author = {Yang, Yunju and Knol, Maria J and Wang, Ruiqi and Mishra, Aniket and Liu, Dan and Luciano, Michelle and Teumer, Alexander and Armstrong, Nicola and Bis, Joshua C and Jhun, Min A and Li, Shuo and Adams, Hieab H H and Aziz, Nasir Ahmad and Bastin, Mark E and Bourgey, Mathieu and Brody, Jennifer A and Frenzel, Stefan and Gottesman, Rebecca F and Hosten, Norbert and Hou, Lifang and Kardia, Sharon L R and Lohner, Valerie and Marquis, Pascale and Maniega, Susana Mu{\~n}oz and Satizabal, Claudia L and Sorond, Farzaneh A and Vald{\'e}s Hern{\'a}ndez, Maria C and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Vernooij, Meike W and Wittfeld, Katharina and Yang, Qiong and Zhao, Wei and Boerwinkle, Eric and Levy, Daniel and Deary, Ian J and Jiang, Jiyang and Mather, Karen A and Mosley, Thomas H and Psaty, Bruce M and Sachdev, Perminder S and Smith, Jennifer A and Sotoodehnia, Nona and DeCarli, Charles S and Breteler, Monique M B and Arfan Ikram, M and Grabe, Hans J and Wardlaw, Joanna and Longstreth, W T and Launer, Lenore J and Seshadri, Sudha and Debette, Stephanie and Fornage, Myriam} } @article {9781, title = {Plasma proteome-wide analysis of cerebral small vessel disease identifies novel biomarkers and disease pathways.}, journal = {medRxiv}, year = {2024}, month = {2024 Oct 08}, abstract = {

Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD), as defined by neuroimaging characteristics such as white matter hyperintensities (WMHs), cerebral microhemorrhages (CMHs), and lacunar infarcts, is highly prevalent and has been associated with dementia risk and other clinical sequelae. Although conditions such as hypertension are known to contribute to SVD, little is known about the diverse set of subclinical biological processes and molecular mediators that may also influence the development and progression of SVD. To better understand the mechanisms underlying SVD and to identify novel SVD biomarkers, we used a large-scale proteomic platform to relate 4,877 plasma proteins to MRI-defined SVD characteristics within 1,508 participants of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study cohort. Our proteome-wide analysis of older adults (mean age: 76) identified 13 WMH-associated plasma proteins involved in synaptic function, endothelial integrity, and angiogenesis, two of which remained associated with late-life WMH volume when measured nearly 20 years earlier, during midlife. We replicated the relationship between 9 candidate proteins and WMH volume in one or more external cohorts; we found that 11 of the 13 proteins were associated with risk for future dementia; and we leveraged publicly available proteomic data from brain tissue to demonstrate that a subset of WMH-associated proteins was differentially expressed in the context of cerebral atherosclerosis, pathologically-defined Alzheimer{\textquoteright}s disease, and cognitive decline. Bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization analyses examined the causal relationships between candidate proteins and WMH volume, while pathway and network analyses identified discrete biological processes (lipid/cholesterol metabolism, NF-kB signaling, hemostasis) associated with distinct forms of SVD. Finally, we synthesized these findings to identify two plasma proteins, oligodendrocyte myelin glycoprotein (OMG) and neuronal pentraxin receptor (NPTXR), as top candidate biomarkers for elevated WMH volume and its clinical manifestations.

}, doi = {10.1101/2024.10.07.24314972}, author = {Gomez, Gabriela T and Shi, Liu and Fohner, Alison E and Chen, Jingsha and Yang, Yunju and Fornage, Myriam and Duggan, Michael R and Peng, Zhongsheng and Daya, Gulzar N and Tin, Adrienne and Schlosser, Pascal and Longstreth, W T and Kalani, Rizwan and Sharma, Malveeka and Psaty, Bruce M and Nevado-Holgado, Alejo J and Buckley, Noel J and Gottesman, Rebecca F and Lutsey, Pamela L and Jack, Clifford R and Sullivan, Kevin J and Mosley, Thomas and Hughes, Timothy M and Coresh, Josef and Walker, Keenan A} }