@article {9479, title = {Carriers of rare damaging genetic variants are at lower risk of atherosclerotic disease.}, journal = {medRxiv}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 Aug 16}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: The CCL2/CCR2 axis governs monocyte trafficking and recruitment to atherosclerotic lesions. Human genetic analyses and population-based studies support an association between circulating CCL2 levels and atherosclerosis. Still, it remains unknown whether pharmacological targeting of CCR2, the main CCL2 receptor, would provide protection against human atherosclerotic disease.

METHODS: In whole-exome sequencing data from 454,775 UK Biobank participants (40-69 years), we identified predicted loss-of-function (LoF) or damaging missense (REVEL score >0.5) variants within the gene. We prioritized variants associated with lower monocyte count (p<0.05) and tested associations with vascular risk factors and risk of atherosclerotic disease over a mean follow-up of 14 years. The results were replicated in a pooled cohort of three independent datasets (TOPMed, deCODE and Penn Medicine BioBank; total n=441,445) and the effect of the most frequent damaging variant was experimentally validated.

RESULTS: A total of 45 predicted LoF or damaging missense variants were identified in the gene, 4 of which were also significantly associated with lower monocyte count, but not with other white blood cell counts. Heterozygous carriers of these variants were at a lower risk of a combined atherosclerosis outcome, showed a lower burden of atherosclerosis across four vascular beds, and were at a lower lifetime risk of coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction. There was no evidence of association with vascular risk factors including LDL-cholesterol, blood pressure, glycemic status, or C-reactive protein. Using a cAMP assay, we found that cells transfected with the most frequent damaging variant (3:46358273:T:A, M249K, 547 carriers, frequency: 0.14\%) show a decrease in signaling in response to CCL2. The associations of the M249K variant with myocardial infarction were consistent across cohorts (OR : 0.62 95\%CI: 0.39-0.96; OR : 0.64 95\%CI: 0.34-1.19; OR : 0.64 95\%CI: 0.45-0.90). In a phenome-wide association study, we found no evidence for higher risk of common infections or mortality among carriers of damaging variants.

CONCLUSIONS: Heterozygous carriers of damaging variants have a lower burden of atherosclerosis and lower lifetime risk of myocardial infarction. In conjunction with previous evidence from experimental and epidemiological studies, our findings highlight the translational potential of CCR2-targeting as an atheroprotective approach.

}, doi = {10.1101/2023.08.14.23294063}, author = {Georgakis, Marios K and Malik, Rainer and Hasbani, Natalie R and Shakt, Gabrielle and Morrison, Alanna C and Tsao, Noah L and Judy, Renae and Mitchell, Braxton D and Xu, Huichun and Montasser, May E and Do, Ron and Kenny, Eimear E and Loos, Ruth J F and Terry, James G and Carr, John Jeffrey and Bis, Joshua C and Psaty, Bruce M and Longstreth, W T and Young, Kendra A and Lutz, Sharon M and Cho, Michael H and Broome, Jai and Khan, Alyna T and Wang, Fei Fei and Heard-Costa, Nancy and Seshadri, Sudha and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Palmer, Nicholette D and Freedman, Barry I and Bowden, Donald W and Yanek, Lisa R and Kral, Brian G and Becker, Lewis C and Peyser, Patricia A and Bielak, Lawrence F and Ammous, Farah and Carson, April P and Hall, Michael E and Raffield, Laura M and Rich, Stephen S and Post, Wendy S and Tracy, Russel P and Taylor, Kent D and Guo, Xiuqing and Mahaney, Michael C and Curran, Joanne E and Blangero, John and Clarke, Shoa L and Haessler, Jeffrey W and Hu, Yao and Assimes, Themistocles L and Kooperberg, Charles and Damrauer, Scott M and Rotter, Jerome I and de Vries, Paul S and Dichgans, Martin} } @article {9501, title = {Multi-ancestry genome-wide study identifies effector genes and druggable pathways for coronary artery calcification.}, journal = {Nat Genet}, volume = {55}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 Oct}, pages = {1651-1664}, abstract = {

Coronary artery calcification (CAC), a measure of subclinical atherosclerosis, predicts future symptomatic coronary artery disease (CAD). Identifying genetic risk factors for CAC may point to new therapeutic avenues for prevention. Currently, there are only four known risk loci for CAC identified from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in the general population. Here we conducted the largest multi-ancestry GWAS meta-analysis of CAC to date, which comprised 26,909 individuals of European ancestry and 8,867 individuals of African ancestry. We identified 11 independent risk loci, of which eight were new for CAC and five had not been reported for CAD. These new CAC loci are related to bone mineralization, phosphate catabolism and hormone metabolic pathways. Several new loci harbor candidate causal genes supported by multiple lines of functional evidence and are regulators of smooth muscle cell-mediated calcification ex vivo and in vitro. Together, these findings help refine the genetic architecture of CAC and extend our understanding of the biological and potential druggable pathways underlying CAC.

}, issn = {1546-1718}, doi = {10.1038/s41588-023-01518-4}, author = {Kavousi, Maryam and Bos, Maxime M and Barnes, Hanna J and Lino Cardenas, Christian L and Wong, Doris and Lu, Haojie and Hodonsky, Chani J and Landsmeer, Lennart P L and Turner, Adam W and Kho, Minjung and Hasbani, Natalie R and de Vries, Paul S and Bowden, Donald W and Chopade, Sandesh and Deelen, Joris and Benavente, Ernest Diez and Guo, Xiuqing and Hofer, Edith and Hwang, Shih-Jen and Lutz, Sharon M and Lyytik{\"a}inen, Leo-Pekka and Slenders, Lotte and Smith, Albert V and Stanislawski, Maggie A and van Setten, Jessica and Wong, Quenna and Yanek, Lisa R and Becker, Diane M and Beekman, Marian and Budoff, Matthew J and Feitosa, Mary F and Finan, Chris and Hilliard, Austin T and Kardia, Sharon L R and Kovacic, Jason C and Kral, Brian G and Langefeld, Carl D and Launer, Lenore J and Malik, Shaista and Hoesein, Firdaus A A Mohamed and Mokry, Michal and Schmidt, Reinhold and Smith, Jennifer A and Taylor, Kent D and Terry, James G and van der Grond, Jeroen and van Meurs, Joyce and Vliegenthart, Rozemarijn and Xu, Jianzhao and Young, Kendra A and Zilh{\~a}o, Nuno R and Zweiker, Robert and Assimes, Themistocles L and Becker, Lewis C and Bos, Daniel and Carr, J Jeffrey and Cupples, L Adrienne and de Kleijn, Dominique P V and de Winther, Menno and den Ruijter, Hester M and Fornage, Myriam and Freedman, Barry I and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Hingorani, Aroon D and Hokanson, John E and Ikram, M Arfan and I{\v s}gum, Ivana and Jacobs, David R and K{\"a}h{\"o}nen, Mika and Lange, Leslie A and Lehtim{\"a}ki, Terho and Pasterkamp, Gerard and Raitakari, Olli T and Schmidt, Helena and Slagboom, P Eline and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Vernooij, Meike W and Bis, Joshua C and Franceschini, Nora and Psaty, Bruce M and Post, Wendy S and Rotter, Jerome I and Bj{\"o}rkegren, Johan L M and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Bielak, Lawrence F and Peyser, Patricia A and Malhotra, Rajeev and van der Laan, Sander W and Miller, Clint L} } @article {9412, title = {Multi-ancestry transcriptome-wide association analyses yield insights into tobacco use biology and drug repurposing.}, journal = {Nat Genet}, volume = {55}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 Feb}, pages = {291-300}, abstract = {

Most transcriptome-wide association studies (TWASs) so far focus on European ancestry and lack diversity. To overcome this limitation, we aggregated genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics, whole-genome sequences and expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) data from diverse ancestries. We developed a new approach, TESLA (multi-ancestry integrative study using an optimal linear combination of association statistics), to integrate an eQTL dataset with a multi-ancestry GWAS. By exploiting shared phenotypic effects between ancestries and accommodating potential effect heterogeneities, TESLA improves power over other TWAS methods. When applied to tobacco use phenotypes, TESLA identified 273 new genes, up to 55\% more compared with alternative TWAS methods. These hits and subsequent fine mapping using TESLA point to target genes with biological relevance. In silico drug-repurposing analyses highlight several drugs with known efficacy, including dextromethorphan and galantamine, and new drugs such as muscle relaxants that may be repurposed for treating nicotine addiction.

}, keywords = {Biology, Drug Repositioning, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Tobacco Use, Transcriptome}, issn = {1546-1718}, doi = {10.1038/s41588-022-01282-x}, author = {Chen, Fang and Wang, Xingyan and Jang, Seon-Kyeong and Quach, Bryan C and Weissenkampen, J Dylan and Khunsriraksakul, Chachrit and Yang, Lina and Sauteraud, Renan and Albert, Christine M and Allred, Nicholette D D and Arnett, Donna K and Ashley-Koch, Allison E and Barnes, Kathleen C and Barr, R Graham and Becker, Diane M and Bielak, Lawrence F and Bis, Joshua C and Blangero, John and Boorgula, Meher Preethi and Chasman, Daniel I and Chavan, Sameer and Chen, Yii-der I and Chuang, Lee-Ming and Correa, Adolfo and Curran, Joanne E and David, Sean P and Fuentes, Lisa de Las and Deka, Ranjan and Duggirala, Ravindranath and Faul, Jessica D and Garrett, Melanie E and Gharib, Sina A and Guo, Xiuqing and Hall, Michael E and Hawley, Nicola L and He, Jiang and Hobbs, Brian D and Hokanson, John E and Hsiung, Chao A and Hwang, Shih-Jen and Hyde, Thomas M and Irvin, Marguerite R and Jaffe, Andrew E and Johnson, Eric O and Kaplan, Robert and Kardia, Sharon L R and Kaufman, Joel D and Kelly, Tanika N and Kleinman, Joel E and Kooperberg, Charles and Lee, I-Te and Levy, Daniel and Lutz, Sharon M and Manichaikul, Ani W and Martin, Lisa W and Marx, Olivia and McGarvey, Stephen T and Minster, Ryan L and Moll, Matthew and Moussa, Karine A and Naseri, Take and North, Kari E and Oelsner, Elizabeth C and Peralta, Juan M and Peyser, Patricia A and Psaty, Bruce M and Rafaels, Nicholas and Raffield, Laura M and Reupena, Muagututi{\textquoteright}a Sefuiva and Rich, Stephen S and Rotter, Jerome I and Schwartz, David A and Shadyab, Aladdin H and Sheu, Wayne H-H and Sims, Mario and Smith, Jennifer A and Sun, Xiao and Taylor, Kent D and Telen, Marilyn J and Watson, Harold and Weeks, Daniel E and Weir, David R and Yanek, Lisa R and Young, Kendra A and Young, Kristin L and Zhao, Wei and Hancock, Dana B and Jiang, Bibo and Vrieze, Scott and Liu, Dajiang J} } @article {9707, title = {Whole-genome sequencing uncovers two loci for coronary artery calcification and identifies ARSE as a regulator of vascular calcification.}, journal = {Nat Cardiovasc Res}, volume = {2}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 Dec}, pages = {1159-1172}, abstract = {

Coronary artery calcification (CAC) is a measure of atherosclerosis and a well-established predictor of coronary artery disease (CAD) events. Here we describe a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of CAC in 22,400 participants from multiple ancestral groups. We confirmed associations with four known loci and identified two additional loci associated with CAC ( and ), with evidence of significant associations in replication analyses for both novel loci. Functional assays of and in human vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) demonstrate that is a promoter of VSMC calcification and VSMC phenotype switching from a contractile to a calcifying or osteogenic phenotype. Furthermore, we show that the association of variants near with reduced CAC is likely explained by reduced expression with the G allele of enhancer variant rs5982944. Our study highlights ARSE as an important contributor to atherosclerotic vascular calcification, and a potential drug target for vascular calcific disease.

}, issn = {2731-0590}, doi = {10.1038/s44161-023-00375-y}, author = {de Vries, Paul S and Conomos, Matthew P and Singh, Kuldeep and Nicholson, Christopher J and Jain, Deepti and Hasbani, Natalie R and Jiang, Wanlin and Lee, Sujin and Lino Cardenas, Christian L and Lutz, Sharon M and Wong, Doris and Guo, Xiuqing and Yao, Jie and Young, Erica P and Tcheandjieu, Catherine and Hilliard, Austin T and Bis, Joshua C and Bielak, Lawrence F and Brown, Michael R and Musharoff, Shaila and Clarke, Shoa L and Terry, James G and Palmer, Nicholette D and Yanek, Lisa R and Xu, Huichun and Heard-Costa, Nancy and Wessel, Jennifer and Selvaraj, Margaret Sunitha and Li, Rebecca H and Sun, Xiao and Turner, Adam W and Stilp, Adrienne M and Khan, Alyna and Newman, Anne B and Rasheed, Asif and Freedman, Barry I and Kral, Brian G and McHugh, Caitlin P and Hodonsky, Chani and Saleheen, Danish and Herrington, David M and Jacobs, David R and Nickerson, Deborah A and Boerwinkle, Eric and Wang, Fei Fei and Heiss, Gerardo and Jun, Goo and Kinney, Greg L and Sigurslid, Haakon H and Doddapaneni, Harshavardhan and Hall, Ira M and Bensenor, Isabela M and Broome, Jai and Crapo, James D and Wilson, James G and Smith, Jennifer A and Blangero, John and Vargas, Jose D and Mosquera, Jose Verdezoto and Smith, Joshua D and Viaud-Martinez, Karine A and Ryan, Kathleen A and Young, Kendra A and Taylor, Kent D and Lange, Leslie A and Emery, Leslie S and Bittencourt, Marcio S and Budoff, Matthew J and Montasser, May E and Yu, Miao and Mahaney, Michael C and Mahamdeh, Mohammed S and Fornage, Myriam and Franceschini, Nora and Lotufo, Paulo A and Natarajan, Pradeep and Wong, Quenna and Mathias, Rasika A and Gibbs, Richard A and Do, Ron and Mehran, Roxana and Tracy, Russell P and Kim, Ryan W and Nelson, Sarah C and Damrauer, Scott M and Kardia, Sharon L R and Rich, Stephen S and Fuster, Valentin and Napolioni, Valerio and Zhao, Wei and Tian, Wenjie and Yin, Xianyong and Min, Yuan-I and Manning, Alisa K and Peloso, Gina and Kelly, Tanika N and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Morrison, Alanna C and Curran, Joanne E and Zapol, Warren M and Bowden, Donald W and Becker, Lewis C and Correa, Adolfo and Mitchell, Braxton D and Psaty, Bruce M and Carr, John Jeffrey and Pereira, Alexandre C and Assimes, Themistocles L and Stitziel, Nathan O and Hokanson, John E and Laurie, Cecelia A and Rotter, Jerome I and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Post, Wendy S and Peyser, Patricia A and Miller, Clint L and Malhotra, Rajeev} } @article {9787, title = {Rare variant contribution to the heritability of coronary artery disease.}, journal = {Nat Commun}, volume = {15}, year = {2024}, month = {2024 Oct 09}, pages = {8741}, abstract = {

Whole genome sequences (WGS) enable discovery of rare variants which may contribute to missing heritability of coronary artery disease (CAD). To measure their contribution, we apply the GREML-LDMS-I approach to WGS of 4949 cases and 17,494 controls of European ancestry from the NHLBI TOPMed program. We estimate CAD heritability at 34.3\% assuming a prevalence of 8.2\%. Ultra-rare (minor allele frequency <= 0.1\%) variants with low linkage disequilibrium (LD) score contribute ~50\% of the heritability. We also investigate CAD heritability enrichment using a diverse set of functional annotations: i) constraint; ii) predicted protein-altering impact; iii) cis-regulatory elements from a cell-specific chromatin atlas of the human coronary; and iv) annotation principal components representing a wide range of functional processes. We observe marked enrichment of CAD heritability for most functional annotations. These results reveal the predominant role of ultra-rare variants in low LD on the heritability of CAD. Moreover, they highlight several functional processes including cell type-specific regulatory mechanisms as key drivers of CAD genetic risk.

}, keywords = {Case-Control Studies, Coronary Artery Disease, Female, Gene Frequency, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Linkage Disequilibrium, Male, Middle Aged, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, White People, Whole Genome Sequencing}, issn = {2041-1723}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-024-52939-6}, author = {Rocheleau, Ghislain and Clarke, Shoa L and Auguste, Ga{\"e}lle and Hasbani, Natalie R and Morrison, Alanna C and Heath, Adam S and Bielak, Lawrence F and Iyer, Kruthika R and Young, Erica P and Stitziel, Nathan O and Jun, Goo and Laurie, Cecelia and Broome, Jai G and Khan, Alyna T and Arnett, Donna K and Becker, Lewis C and Bis, Joshua C and Boerwinkle, Eric and Bowden, Donald W and Carson, April P and Ellinor, Patrick T and Fornage, Myriam and Franceschini, Nora and Freedman, Barry I and Heard-Costa, Nancy L and Hou, Lifang and Chen, Yii-Der Ida and Kenny, Eimear E and Kooperberg, Charles and Kral, Brian G and Loos, Ruth J F and Lutz, Sharon M and Manson, JoAnn E and Martin, Lisa W and Mitchell, Braxton D and Nassir, Rami and Palmer, Nicholette D and Post, Wendy S and Preuss, Michael H and Psaty, Bruce M and Raffield, Laura M and Regan, Elizabeth A and Rich, Stephen S and Smith, Jennifer A and Taylor, Kent D and Yanek, Lisa R and Young, Kendra A and Hilliard, Austin T and Tcheandjieu, Catherine and Peyser, Patricia A and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Rotter, Jerome I and Miller, Clint L and Assimes, Themistocles L and de Vries, Paul S and Do, Ron} } @article {9898, title = {Rare damaging CCR2 variants are associated with lower lifetime cardiovascular risk.}, journal = {Genome Med}, volume = {17}, year = {2025}, month = {2025 Mar 21}, pages = {27}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Previous work has shown a role of CCL2, a key chemokine governing monocyte trafficking, in atherosclerosis. However, it remains unknown whether targeting CCR2, the cognate receptor of CCL2, provides protection against human atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

METHODS: Computationally predicted damaging or loss-of-function (REVEL > 0.5) variants within CCR2 were detected in whole-exome-sequencing data from 454,775 UK Biobank participants and tested for association with cardiovascular endpoints in gene-burden tests. Given the key role of CCR2 in monocyte mobilization, variants associated with lower monocyte count were prioritized for experimental validation. The response to CCL2 of human cells transfected with these variants was tested in migration and cAMP assays. Validated damaging variants were tested for association with cardiovascular endpoints, atherosclerosis burden, and vascular risk factors. Significant associations were replicated in six independent datasets (n = 1,062,595).

RESULTS: Carriers of 45 predicted damaging or loss-of-function CCR2 variants (n = 787 individuals) were at lower risk of myocardial infarction and coronary artery disease. One of these variants (M249K, n = 585, 0.15\% of European ancestry individuals) was associated with lower monocyte count and with both decreased downstream signaling and chemoattraction in response to CCL2. While M249K showed no association with conventional vascular risk factors, it was consistently associated with a lower risk of myocardial infarction (odds ratio [OR]: 0.66, 95\% confidence interval [CI]: 0.54-0.81, p = 6.1 {\texttimes} 10) and coronary artery disease (OR: 0.74, 95\%CI: 0.63-0.87, p = 2.9 {\texttimes} 10) in the UK Biobank and in six replication cohorts. In a phenome-wide association study, there was no evidence of a higher risk of infections among M249K carriers.

CONCLUSIONS: Carriers of an experimentally confirmed damaging CCR2 variant are at a lower lifetime risk of myocardial infarction and coronary artery disease without carrying a higher risk of infections. Our findings provide genetic support for the translational potential of CCR2-targeting as an atheroprotective approach.

}, keywords = {Aged, Cardiovascular Diseases, Chemokine CCL2, Female, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Monocytes, Receptors, CCR2}, issn = {1756-994X}, doi = {10.1186/s13073-025-01456-2}, author = {Georgakis, Marios K and Malik, Rainer and Bounkari, Omar El and Hasbani, Natalie R and Li, Jiang and Huffman, Jennifer E and Shakt, Gabrielle and Tack, Reinier W P and Kimball, Tamara N and Asare, Yaw and Morrison, Alanna C and Tsao, Noah L and Judy, Renae and Mitchell, Braxton D and Xu, Huichun and Montasser, May E and Do, Ron and Kenny, Eimear E and Loos, Ruth J F and Terry, James G and Carr, John Jeffrey and Bis, Joshua C and Psaty, Bruce M and Longstreth, W T and Young, Kendra A and Lutz, Sharon M and Cho, Michael H and Broome, Jai and Khan, Alyna T and Wang, Fei Fei and Heard-Costa, Nancy and Seshadri, Sudha and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Palmer, Nicholette D and Freedman, Barry I and Bowden, Donald W and Yanek, Lisa R and Kral, Brian G and Becker, Lewis C and Peyser, Patricia A and Bielak, Lawrence F and Ammous, Farah and Carson, April P and Hall, Michael E and Raffield, Laura M and Rich, Stephen S and Post, Wendy S and Tracy, Russel P and Taylor, Kent D and Guo, Xiuqing and Mahaney, Michael C and Curran, Joanne E and Blangero, John and Clarke, Shoa L and Haessler, Jeffrey W and Hu, Yao and Assimes, Themistocles L and Kooperberg, Charles and Bernhagen, J{\"u}rgen and Anderson, Christopher D and Damrauer, Scott M and Zand, Ramin and Rotter, Jerome I and de Vries, Paul S and Dichgans, Martin} }