@article {1153, title = {Association of novel genetic Loci with circulating fibrinogen levels: a genome-wide association study in 6 population-based cohorts.}, journal = {Circ Cardiovasc Genet}, volume = {2}, year = {2009}, month = {2009 Apr}, pages = {125-33}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Fibrinogen is both central to blood coagulation and an acute-phase reactant. We aimed to identify common variants influencing circulation fibrinogen levels.

METHODS AND RESULTS: We conducted a genome-wide association analysis on 6 population-based studies, the Rotterdam Study, the Framingham Heart Study, the Cardiovascular Health Study, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, the Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease/KORA Augsburg Study, and the British 1958 Birth Cohort Study, including 22 096 participants of European ancestry. Four loci were marked by 1 or more single-nucleotide polymorphisms that demonstrated genome-wide significance (P<5.0 x 10(-8)). These included a single-nucleotide polymorphism located in the fibrinogen beta chain (FGB) gene and 3 single-nucleotide polymorphisms representing newly identified loci. The high-signal single-nucleotide polymorphisms were rs1800789 in exon 7 of FGB (P=1.8 x 10(-30)), rs2522056 downstream from the interferon regulatory factor 1 (IRF1) gene (P=1.3 x 10(-15)), rs511154 within intron 1 of the propionyl coenzyme A carboxylase (PCCB) gene (P=5.9 x 10(-10)), and rs1539019 on the NLR family pyrin domain containing 3 isoforms (NLRP3) gene (P=1.04 x 10(-8)).

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight biological pathways that may be important in regulation of inflammation underlying cardiovascular disease.

}, keywords = {Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Cardiovascular Diseases, Cohort Studies, European Continental Ancestry Group, Female, Fibrinogen, Genetic Loci, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Pedigree, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Young Adult}, issn = {1942-3268}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.108.825224}, author = {Dehghan, Abbas and Yang, Qiong and Peters, Annette and Basu, Saonli and Bis, Joshua C and Rudnicka, Alicja R and Kavousi, Maryam and Chen, Ming-Huei and Baumert, Jens and Lowe, Gordon D O and McKnight, Barbara and Tang, Weihong and de Maat, Moniek and Larson, Martin G and Eyhermendy, Susana and McArdle, Wendy L and Lumley, Thomas and Pankow, James S and Hofman, Albert and Massaro, Joseph M and Rivadeneira, Fernando and Kolz, Melanie and Taylor, Kent D and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Kathiresan, Sekar and Illig, Thomas and Aulchenko, Yurii S and Volcik, Kelly A and Johnson, Andrew D and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Tofler, Geoffrey H and Gieger, Christian and Psaty, Bruce M and Couper, David J and Boerwinkle, Eric and Koenig, Wolfgang and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Witteman, Jacqueline C and Strachan, David P and Smith, Nicholas L and Folsom, Aaron R} } @article {1237, title = {Association analyses of 249,796 individuals reveal 18 new loci associated with body mass index.}, journal = {Nat Genet}, volume = {42}, year = {2010}, month = {2010 Nov}, pages = {937-48}, abstract = {

Obesity is globally prevalent and highly heritable, but its underlying genetic factors remain largely elusive. To identify genetic loci for obesity susceptibility, we examined associations between body mass index and \~{} 2.8 million SNPs in up to 123,865 individuals with targeted follow up of 42 SNPs in up to 125,931 additional individuals. We confirmed 14 known obesity susceptibility loci and identified 18 new loci associated with body mass index (P < 5 {\texttimes} 10$^{-}$$^{8}$), one of which includes a copy number variant near GPRC5B. Some loci (at MC4R, POMC, SH2B1 and BDNF) map near key hypothalamic regulators of energy balance, and one of these loci is near GIPR, an incretin receptor. Furthermore, genes in other newly associated loci may provide new insights into human body weight regulation.

}, keywords = {Body Height, Body Mass Index, Body Size, Body Weight, Chromosome Mapping, European Continental Ancestry Group, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Obesity, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide}, issn = {1546-1718}, doi = {10.1038/ng.686}, author = {Speliotes, Elizabeth K and Willer, Cristen J and Berndt, Sonja I and Monda, Keri L and Thorleifsson, Gudmar and Jackson, Anne U and Lango Allen, Hana and Lindgren, Cecilia M and Luan, Jian{\textquoteright}an and M{\"a}gi, Reedik and Randall, Joshua C and Vedantam, Sailaja and Winkler, Thomas W and Qi, Lu and Workalemahu, Tsegaselassie and Heid, Iris M and Steinthorsdottir, Valgerdur and Stringham, Heather M and Weedon, Michael N and Wheeler, Eleanor and Wood, Andrew R and Ferreira, Teresa and Weyant, Robert J and Segr{\`e}, Ayellet V and Estrada, Karol and Liang, Liming and Nemesh, James and Park, Ju-Hyun and Gustafsson, Stefan and Kilpel{\"a}inen, Tuomas O and Yang, Jian and Bouatia-Naji, Nabila and Esko, T{\~o}nu and Feitosa, Mary F and Kutalik, Zolt{\'a}n and Mangino, Massimo and Raychaudhuri, Soumya and Scherag, Andre and Smith, Albert Vernon and Welch, Ryan and Zhao, Jing Hua and Aben, Katja K and Absher, Devin M and Amin, Najaf and Dixon, Anna L and Fisher, Eva and Glazer, Nicole L and Goddard, Michael E and Heard-Costa, Nancy L and Hoesel, Volker and Hottenga, Jouke-Jan and Johansson, Asa and Johnson, Toby and Ketkar, Shamika and Lamina, Claudia and Li, Shengxu and Moffatt, Miriam F and Myers, Richard H and Narisu, Narisu and Perry, John R B and Peters, Marjolein J and Preuss, Michael and Ripatti, Samuli and Rivadeneira, Fernando and Sandholt, Camilla and Scott, Laura J and Timpson, Nicholas J and Tyrer, Jonathan P and van Wingerden, Sophie and Watanabe, Richard M and White, Charles C and Wiklund, Fredrik and Barlassina, Christina and Chasman, Daniel I and Cooper, Matthew N and Jansson, John-Olov and Lawrence, Robert W and Pellikka, Niina and Prokopenko, Inga and Shi, Jianxin and Thiering, Elisabeth and Alavere, Helene and Alibrandi, Maria T S and Almgren, Peter and Arnold, Alice M and Aspelund, Thor and Atwood, Larry D and Balkau, Beverley and Balmforth, Anthony J and Bennett, Amanda J and Ben-Shlomo, Yoav and Bergman, Richard N and Bergmann, Sven and Biebermann, Heike and Blakemore, Alexandra I F and Boes, Tanja and Bonnycastle, Lori L and Bornstein, Stefan R and Brown, Morris J and Buchanan, Thomas A and Busonero, Fabio and Campbell, Harry and Cappuccio, Francesco P and Cavalcanti-Proen{\c c}a, Christine and Chen, Yii-Der Ida and Chen, Chih-Mei and Chines, Peter S and Clarke, Robert and Coin, Lachlan and Connell, John and Day, Ian N M and den Heijer, Martin and Duan, Jubao and Ebrahim, Shah and Elliott, Paul and Elosua, Roberto and Eiriksdottir, Gudny and Erdos, Michael R and Eriksson, Johan G and Facheris, Maurizio F and Felix, Stephan B and Fischer-Posovszky, Pamela and Folsom, Aaron R and Friedrich, Nele and Freimer, Nelson B and Fu, Mao and Gaget, Stefan and Gejman, Pablo V and Geus, Eco J C and Gieger, Christian and Gjesing, Anette P and Goel, Anuj and Goyette, Philippe and Grallert, Harald and Gr{\"a}ssler, J{\"u}rgen and Greenawalt, Danielle M and Groves, Christopher J and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Guiducci, Candace and Hartikainen, Anna-Liisa and Hassanali, Neelam and Hall, Alistair S and Havulinna, Aki S and Hayward, Caroline and Heath, Andrew C and Hengstenberg, Christian and Hicks, Andrew A and Hinney, Anke and Hofman, Albert and Homuth, Georg and Hui, Jennie and Igl, Wilmar and Iribarren, Carlos and Isomaa, Bo and Jacobs, Kevin B and Jarick, Ivonne and Jewell, Elizabeth and John, Ulrich and J{\o}rgensen, Torben and Jousilahti, Pekka and Jula, Antti and Kaakinen, Marika and Kajantie, Eero and Kaplan, Lee M and Kathiresan, Sekar and Kettunen, Johannes and Kinnunen, Leena and Knowles, Joshua W and Kolcic, Ivana and K{\"o}nig, Inke R and Koskinen, Seppo and Kovacs, Peter and Kuusisto, Johanna and Kraft, Peter and Kval{\o}y, Kirsti and Laitinen, Jaana and Lantieri, Olivier and Lanzani, Chiara and Launer, Lenore J and Lecoeur, C{\'e}cile and Lehtim{\"a}ki, Terho and Lettre, Guillaume and Liu, Jianjun and Lokki, Marja-Liisa and Lorentzon, Mattias and Luben, Robert N and Ludwig, Barbara and Manunta, Paolo and Marek, Diana and Marre, Michel and Martin, Nicholas G and McArdle, Wendy L and McCarthy, Anne and McKnight, Barbara and Meitinger, Thomas and Melander, Olle and Meyre, David and Midthjell, Kristian and Montgomery, Grant W and Morken, Mario A and Morris, Andrew P and Mulic, Rosanda and Ngwa, Julius S and Nelis, Mari and Neville, Matt J and Nyholt, Dale R and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and O{\textquoteright}Rahilly, Stephen and Ong, Ken K and Oostra, Ben and Par{\'e}, Guillaume and Parker, Alex N and Perola, Markus and Pichler, Irene and Pietil{\"a}inen, Kirsi H and Platou, Carl G P and Polasek, Ozren and Pouta, Anneli and Rafelt, Suzanne and Raitakari, Olli and Rayner, Nigel W and Ridderstr{\r a}le, Martin and Rief, Winfried and Ruokonen, Aimo and Robertson, Neil R and Rzehak, Peter and Salomaa, Veikko and Sanders, Alan R and Sandhu, Manjinder S and Sanna, Serena and Saramies, Jouko and Savolainen, Markku J and Scherag, Susann and Schipf, Sabine and Schreiber, Stefan and Schunkert, Heribert and Silander, Kaisa and Sinisalo, Juha and Siscovick, David S and Smit, Jan H and Soranzo, Nicole and Sovio, Ulla and Stephens, Jonathan and Surakka, Ida and Swift, Amy J and Tammesoo, Mari-Liis and Tardif, Jean-Claude and Teder-Laving, Maris and Teslovich, Tanya M and Thompson, John R and Thomson, Brian and T{\"o}njes, Anke and Tuomi, Tiinamaija and van Meurs, Joyce B J and van Ommen, Gert-Jan and Vatin, Vincent and Viikari, Jorma and Visvikis-Siest, Sophie and Vitart, Veronique and Vogel, Carla I G and Voight, Benjamin F and Waite, Lindsay L and Wallaschofski, Henri and Walters, G Bragi and Widen, Elisabeth and Wiegand, Susanna and Wild, Sarah H and Willemsen, Gonneke and Witte, Daniel R and Witteman, Jacqueline C and Xu, Jianfeng and Zhang, Qunyuan and Zgaga, Lina and Ziegler, Andreas and Zitting, Paavo and Beilby, John P and Farooqi, I Sadaf and Hebebrand, Johannes and Huikuri, Heikki V and James, Alan L and K{\"a}h{\"o}nen, Mika and Levinson, Douglas F and Macciardi, Fabio and Nieminen, Markku S and Ohlsson, Claes and Palmer, Lyle J and Ridker, Paul M and Stumvoll, Michael and Beckmann, Jacques S and Boeing, Heiner and Boerwinkle, Eric and Boomsma, Dorret I and Caulfield, Mark J and Chanock, Stephen J and Collins, Francis S and Cupples, L Adrienne and Smith, George Davey and Erdmann, Jeanette and Froguel, Philippe and Gr{\"o}nberg, Henrik and Gyllensten, Ulf and Hall, Per and Hansen, Torben and Harris, Tamara B and Hattersley, Andrew T and Hayes, Richard B and Heinrich, Joachim and Hu, Frank B and Hveem, Kristian and Illig, Thomas and Jarvelin, Marjo-Riitta and Kaprio, Jaakko and Karpe, Fredrik and Khaw, Kay-Tee and Kiemeney, Lambertus A and Krude, Heiko and Laakso, Markku and Lawlor, Debbie A and Metspalu, Andres and Munroe, Patricia B and Ouwehand, Willem H and Pedersen, Oluf and Penninx, Brenda W and Peters, Annette and Pramstaller, Peter P and Quertermous, Thomas and Reinehr, Thomas and Rissanen, Aila and Rudan, Igor and Samani, Nilesh J and Schwarz, Peter E H and Shuldiner, Alan R and Spector, Timothy D and Tuomilehto, Jaakko and Uda, Manuela and Uitterlinden, Andre and Valle, Timo T and Wabitsch, Martin and Waeber, G{\'e}rard and Wareham, Nicholas J and Watkins, Hugh and Wilson, James F and Wright, Alan F and Zillikens, M Carola and Chatterjee, Nilanjan and McCarroll, Steven A and Purcell, Shaun and Schadt, Eric E and Visscher, Peter M and Assimes, Themistocles L and Borecki, Ingrid B and Deloukas, Panos and Fox, Caroline S and Groop, Leif C and Haritunians, Talin and Hunter, David J and Kaplan, Robert C and Mohlke, Karen L and O{\textquoteright}Connell, Jeffrey R and Peltonen, Leena and Schlessinger, David and Strachan, David P and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Wichmann, H-Erich and Frayling, Timothy M and Thorsteinsdottir, Unnur and Abecasis, Goncalo R and Barroso, In{\^e}s and Boehnke, Michael and Stefansson, Kari and North, Kari E and McCarthy, Mark I and Hirschhorn, Joel N and Ingelsson, Erik and Loos, Ruth J F} } @article {1197, title = {Association of genome-wide variation with the risk of incident heart failure in adults of European and African ancestry: a prospective meta-analysis from the cohorts for heart and aging research in genomic epidemiology (CHARGE) consortium.}, journal = {Circ Cardiovasc Genet}, volume = {3}, year = {2010}, month = {2010 Jun}, pages = {256-66}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Although genetic factors contribute to the onset of heart failure (HF), no large-scale genome-wide investigation of HF risk has been published to date. We have investigated the association of 2,478,304 single-nucleotide polymorphisms with incident HF by meta-analyzing data from 4 community-based prospective cohorts: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, the Cardiovascular Health Study, the Framingham Heart Study, and the Rotterdam Study.

METHODS AND RESULTS: Eligible participants for these analyses were of European or African ancestry and free of clinical HF at baseline. Each study independently conducted genome-wide scans and imputed data to the approximately 2.5 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms in HapMap. Within each study, Cox proportional hazards regression models provided age- and sex-adjusted estimates of the association between each variant and time to incident HF. Fixed-effect meta-analyses combined results for each single-nucleotide polymorphism from the 4 cohorts to produce an overall association estimate and P value. A genome-wide significance P value threshold was set a priori at 5.0x10(-7). During a mean follow-up of 11.5 years, 2526 incident HF events (12\%) occurred in 20 926 European-ancestry participants. The meta-analysis identified a genome-wide significant locus at chromosomal position 15q22 (1.4x10(-8)), which was 58.8 kb from USP3. Among 2895 African-ancestry participants, 466 incident HF events (16\%) occurred during a mean follow-up of 13.7 years. One genome-wide significant locus was identified at 12q14 (6.7x10(-8)), which was 6.3 kb from LRIG3.

CONCLUSIONS: We identified 2 loci that were associated with incident HF and exceeded genome-wide significance. The findings merit replication in other community-based settings of incident HF.

}, keywords = {African Americans, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Cohort Studies, Endopeptidases, European Continental Ancestry Group, Female, Genome-Wide Association Study, Heart Failure, Humans, Incidence, Male, Middle Aged, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Risk, Ubiquitin-Specific Proteases}, issn = {1942-3268}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.109.895763}, author = {Smith, Nicholas L and Felix, Janine F and Morrison, Alanna C and Demissie, Serkalem and Glazer, Nicole L and Loehr, Laura R and Cupples, L Adrienne and Dehghan, Abbas and Lumley, Thomas and Rosamond, Wayne D and Lieb, Wolfgang and Rivadeneira, Fernando and Bis, Joshua C and Folsom, Aaron R and Benjamin, Emelia and Aulchenko, Yurii S and Haritunians, Talin and Couper, David and Murabito, Joanne and Wang, Ying A and Stricker, Bruno H and Gottdiener, John S and Chang, Patricia P and Wang, Thomas J and Rice, Kenneth M and Hofman, Albert and Heckbert, Susan R and Fox, Ervin R and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Rotter, Jerome I and Willerson, James T and Levy, Daniel and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Psaty, Bruce M and Witteman, Jacqueline C M and Boerwinkle, Eric and Vasan, Ramachandran S} } @article {1347, title = {Association of genetic variants and incident coronary heart disease in multiethnic cohorts: the PAGE study.}, journal = {Circ Cardiovasc Genet}, volume = {4}, year = {2011}, month = {2011 Dec}, pages = {661-72}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Genome-wide association studies identified several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) associated with prevalent coronary heart disease (CHD), but less is known of associations with incident CHD. The association of 13 published CHD SNPs was examined in 5 ancestry groups of 4 large US prospective cohorts.

METHODS AND RESULTS: The analyses included incident coronary events over an average 9.1 to 15.7 follow-up person-years in up to 26 617 white individuals (6626 events), 8018 black individuals (914 events), 1903 Hispanic individuals (113 events), 3669 American Indian individuals (595 events), and 885 Asian/Pacific Islander individuals (66 events). We used Cox proportional hazards models (with additive mode of inheritance) adjusted for age, sex, and ancestry (as needed). Nine loci were statistically associated with incident CHD events in white participants: 9p21 (rs10757278; P=4.7 {\texttimes} 10(-41)), 16q23.1 (rs2549513; P=0.0004), 6p24.1 (rs499818; P=0.0002), 2q36.3 (rs2943634; P=6.7 {\texttimes} 10(-6)), MTHFD1L (rs6922269, P=5.1 {\texttimes} 10(-10)), APOE (rs429358; P=2.7{\texttimes}10(-18)), ZNF627 (rs4804611; P=5.0 {\texttimes} 10(-8)), CXCL12 (rs501120; P=1.4 {\texttimes} 10(-6)) and LPL (rs268; P=2.7 {\texttimes} 10(-17)). The 9p21 region showed significant between-study heterogeneity, with larger effects in individuals age 55 years or younger and in women. Inclusion of coronary revascularization procedures among the incident CHD events introduced heterogeneity. The SNPs were not associated with CHD in black participants, and associations varied in other US minorities.

CONCLUSIONS: Prospective analyses of white participants replicated several reported cross-sectional CHD-SNP associations.

}, keywords = {Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Continental Population Groups, Coronary Disease, Female, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Prospective Studies}, issn = {1942-3268}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.111.960096}, author = {Franceschini, Nora and Carty, Cara and B{\r u}zkov{\'a}, Petra and Reiner, Alex P and Garrett, Tiana and Lin, Yi and V{\"o}ckler, Jens-S and Hindorff, Lucia A and Cole, Shelley A and Boerwinkle, Eric and Lin, Dan-Yu and Bookman, Ebony and Best, Lyle G and Bella, Jonathan N and Eaton, Charles and Greenland, Philip and Jenny, Nancy and North, Kari E and Taverna, Darin and Young, Alicia M and Deelman, Ewa and Kooperberg, Charles and Psaty, Bruce and Heiss, Gerardo} } @article {1359, title = {Association between chromosome 9p21 variants and the ankle-brachial index identified by a meta-analysis of 21 genome-wide association studies.}, journal = {Circ Cardiovasc Genet}, volume = {5}, year = {2012}, month = {2012 Feb 01}, pages = {100-12}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Genetic determinants of peripheral arterial disease (PAD) remain largely unknown. To identify genetic variants associated with the ankle-brachial index (ABI), a noninvasive measure of PAD, we conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association study data from 21 population-based cohorts.

METHODS AND RESULTS: Continuous ABI and PAD (ABI <=0.9) phenotypes adjusted for age and sex were examined. Each study conducted genotyping and imputed data to the ≈2.5 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in HapMap. Linear and logistic regression models were used to test each SNP for association with ABI and PAD using additive genetic models. Study-specific data were combined using fixed effects inverse variance weighted meta-analyses. There were a total of 41 692 participants of European ancestry (≈60\% women, mean ABI 1.02 to 1.19), including 3409 participants with PAD and with genome-wide association study data available. In the discovery meta-analysis, rs10757269 on chromosome 9 near CDKN2B had the strongest association with ABI (β=-0.006, P=2.46{\texttimes}10(-8)). We sought replication of the 6 strongest SNP associations in 5 population-based studies and 3 clinical samples (n=16 717). The association for rs10757269 strengthened in the combined discovery and replication analysis (P=2.65{\texttimes}10(-9)). No other SNP associations for ABI or PAD achieved genome-wide significance. However, 2 previously reported candidate genes for PAD and 1 SNP associated with coronary artery disease were associated with ABI: DAB21P (rs13290547, P=3.6{\texttimes}10(-5)), CYBA (rs3794624, P=6.3{\texttimes}10(-5)), and rs1122608 (LDLR, P=0.0026).

CONCLUSIONS: Genome-wide association studies in more than 40 000 individuals identified 1 genome wide significant association on chromosome 9p21 with ABI. Two candidate genes for PAD and 1 SNP for coronary artery disease are associated with ABI.

}, keywords = {Adult, Age Factors, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Alleles, Ankle Brachial Index, Chromosomes, Human, Pair 9, Cohort Studies, Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p15, Female, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotype, HapMap Project, Humans, Logistic Models, Male, Middle Aged, Peripheral Vascular Diseases, Phenotype, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Risk Factors, Sex Factors}, issn = {1942-3268}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.111.961292}, author = {Murabito, Joanne M and White, Charles C and Kavousi, Maryam and Sun, Yan V and Feitosa, Mary F and Nambi, Vijay and Lamina, Claudia and Schillert, Arne and Coassin, Stefan and Bis, Joshua C and Broer, Linda and Crawford, Dana C and Franceschini, Nora and Frikke-Schmidt, Ruth and Haun, Margot and Holewijn, Suzanne and Huffman, Jennifer E and Hwang, Shih-Jen and Kiechl, Stefan and Kollerits, Barbara and Montasser, May E and Nolte, Ilja M and Rudock, Megan E and Senft, Andrea and Teumer, Alexander and van der Harst, Pim and Vitart, Veronique and Waite, Lindsay L and Wood, Andrew R and Wassel, Christina L and Absher, Devin M and Allison, Matthew A and Amin, Najaf and Arnold, Alice and Asselbergs, Folkert W and Aulchenko, Yurii and Bandinelli, Stefania and Barbalic, Maja and Boban, Mladen and Brown-Gentry, Kristin and Couper, David J and Criqui, Michael H and Dehghan, Abbas and den Heijer, Martin and Dieplinger, Benjamin and Ding, Jingzhong and D{\"o}rr, Marcus and Espinola-Klein, Christine and Felix, Stephan B and Ferrucci, Luigi and Folsom, Aaron R and Fraedrich, Gustav and Gibson, Quince and Goodloe, Robert and Gunjaca, Grgo and Haltmayer, Meinhard and Heiss, Gerardo and Hofman, Albert and Kieback, Arne and Kiemeney, Lambertus A and Kolcic, Ivana and Kullo, Iftikhar J and Kritchevsky, Stephen B and Lackner, Karl J and Li, Xiaohui and Lieb, Wolfgang and Lohman, Kurt and Meisinger, Christa and Melzer, David and Mohler, Emile R and Mudnic, Ivana and Mueller, Thomas and Navis, Gerjan and Oberhollenzer, Friedrich and Olin, Jeffrey W and O{\textquoteright}Connell, Jeff and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Palmas, Walter and Penninx, Brenda W and Petersmann, Astrid and Polasek, Ozren and Psaty, Bruce M and Rantner, Barbara and Rice, Ken and Rivadeneira, Fernando and Rotter, Jerome I and Seldenrijk, Adrie and Stadler, Marietta and Summerer, Monika and Tanaka, Toshiko and Tybjaerg-Hansen, Anne and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and van Gilst, Wiek H and Vermeulen, Sita H and Wild, Sarah H and Wild, Philipp S and Willeit, Johann and Zeller, Tanja and Zemunik, Tatijana and Zgaga, Lina and Assimes, Themistocles L and Blankenberg, Stefan and Boerwinkle, Eric and Campbell, Harry and Cooke, John P and de Graaf, Jacqueline and Herrington, David and Kardia, Sharon L R and Mitchell, Braxton D and Murray, Anna and M{\"u}nzel, Thomas and Newman, Anne B and Oostra, Ben A and Rudan, Igor and Shuldiner, Alan R and Snieder, Harold and van Duijn, Cornelia M and V{\"o}lker, Uwe and Wright, Alan F and Wichmann, H-Erich and Wilson, James F and Witteman, Jacqueline C M and Liu, Yongmei and Hayward, Caroline and Borecki, Ingrid B and Ziegler, Andreas and North, Kari E and Cupples, L Adrienne and Kronenberg, Florian} } @article {5857, title = {Association of genome-wide variation with highly sensitive cardiac troponin-T levels in European Americans and Blacks: a meta-analysis from atherosclerosis risk in communities and cardiovascular health studies.}, journal = {Circ Cardiovasc Genet}, volume = {6}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 Feb}, pages = {82-8}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: High levels of cardiac troponin T, measured by a highly sensitive assay (hs-cTnT), are strongly associated with incident coronary heart disease and heart failure. To date, no large-scale genome-wide association study of hs-cTnT has been reported. We sought to identify novel genetic variants that are associated with hs-cTnT levels.

METHODS AND RESULTS: We performed a genome-wide association in 9491 European Americans and 2053 blacks free of coronary heart disease and heart failure from 2 prospective cohorts: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study and the Cardiovascular Health Study. Genome-wide association studies were conducted in each study and race stratum. Fixed-effect meta-analyses combined the results of linear regression from 2 cohorts within each race stratum and then across race strata to produce overall estimates and probability values. The meta-analysis identified a significant association at chromosome 8q13 (rs10091374; P=9.06{\texttimes}10(-9)) near the nuclear receptor coactivator 2 (NCOA2) gene. Overexpression of NCOA2 can be detected in myoblasts. An additional analysis using logistic regression and the clinically motivated 99th percentile cut point detected a significant association at 1q32 (rs12564445; P=4.73{\texttimes}10(-8)) in the gene TNNT2, which encodes the cardiac troponin T protein itself. The hs-cTnT-associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms were not associated with coronary heart disease in a large case-control study, but rs12564445 was significantly associated with incident heart failure in Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study European Americans (hazard ratio=1.16; P=0.004).

CONCLUSIONS: We identified 2 loci, near NCOA2 and in the TNNT2 gene, at which variation was significantly associated with hs-cTnT levels. Further use of the new assay should enable replication of these results.

}, keywords = {African Continental Ancestry Group, Atherosclerosis, European Continental Ancestry Group, Female, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Nuclear Receptor Coactivator 2, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Prospective Studies, Residence Characteristics, Risk Factors, Troponin T}, issn = {1942-3268}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.112.963058}, author = {Yu, Bing and Barbalic, Maja and Brautbar, Ariel and Nambi, Vijay and Hoogeveen, Ron C and Tang, Weihong and Mosley, Thomas H and Rotter, Jerome I and deFilippi, Christopher R and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Kathiresan, Sekar and Rice, Ken and Heckbert, Susan R and Ballantyne, Christie M and Psaty, Bruce M and Boerwinkle, Eric} } @article {6569, title = {Association between alcohol and cardiovascular disease: Mendelian randomisation analysis based on individual participant data.}, journal = {BMJ}, volume = {349}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Jul 10}, pages = {g4164}, abstract = {

OBJECTIVE: To use the rs1229984 variant in the alcohol dehydrogenase 1B gene (ADH1B) as an instrument to investigate the causal role of alcohol in cardiovascular disease.

DESIGN: Mendelian randomisation meta-analysis of 56 epidemiological studies.

PARTICIPANTS: 261 991 individuals of European descent, including 20 259 coronary heart disease cases and 10 164 stroke events. Data were available on ADH1B rs1229984 variant, alcohol phenotypes, and cardiovascular biomarkers.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Odds ratio for coronary heart disease and stroke associated with the ADH1B variant in all individuals and by categories of alcohol consumption.

RESULTS: Carriers of the A-allele of ADH1B rs1229984 consumed 17.2\% fewer units of alcohol per week (95\% confidence interval 15.6\% to 18.9\%), had a lower prevalence of binge drinking (odds ratio 0.78 (95\% CI 0.73 to 0.84)), and had higher abstention (odds ratio 1.27 (1.21 to 1.34)) than non-carriers. Rs1229984 A-allele carriers had lower systolic blood pressure (-0.88 (-1.19 to -0.56) mm Hg), interleukin-6 levels (-5.2\% (-7.8 to -2.4\%)), waist circumference (-0.3 (-0.6 to -0.1) cm), and body mass index (-0.17 (-0.24 to -0.10) kg/m(2)). Rs1229984 A-allele carriers had lower odds of coronary heart disease (odds ratio 0.90 (0.84 to 0.96)). The protective association of the ADH1B rs1229984 A-allele variant remained the same across all categories of alcohol consumption (P=0.83 for heterogeneity). Although no association of rs1229984 was identified with the combined subtypes of stroke, carriers of the A-allele had lower odds of ischaemic stroke (odds ratio 0.83 (0.72 to 0.95)).

CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with a genetic variant associated with non-drinking and lower alcohol consumption had a more favourable cardiovascular profile and a reduced risk of coronary heart disease than those without the genetic variant. This suggests that reduction of alcohol consumption, even for light to moderate drinkers, is beneficial for cardiovascular health.

}, keywords = {Adult, Aged, Alcohol Dehydrogenase, Alcohol Drinking, Biomarkers, Coronary Disease, Female, Genetic Markers, Genotype, Humans, Male, Mendelian Randomization Analysis, Middle Aged, Models, Statistical, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Stroke}, issn = {1756-1833}, doi = {10.1136/bmj.g4164}, author = {Holmes, Michael V and Dale, Caroline E and Zuccolo, Luisa and Silverwood, Richard J and Guo, Yiran and Ye, Zheng and Prieto-Merino, David and Dehghan, Abbas and Trompet, Stella and Wong, Andrew and Cavadino, Alana and Drogan, Dagmar and Padmanabhan, Sandosh and Li, Shanshan and Yesupriya, Ajay and Leusink, Maarten and Sundstr{\"o}m, Johan and Hubacek, Jaroslav A and Pikhart, Hynek and Swerdlow, Daniel I and Panayiotou, Andrie G and Borinskaya, Svetlana A and Finan, Chris and Shah, Sonia and Kuchenbaecker, Karoline B and Shah, Tina and Engmann, Jorgen and Folkersen, Lasse and Eriksson, Per and Ricceri, Fulvio and Melander, Olle and Sacerdote, Carlotta and Gamble, Dale M and Rayaprolu, Sruti and Ross, Owen A and McLachlan, Stela and Vikhireva, Olga and Sluijs, Ivonne and Scott, Robert A and Adamkova, Vera and Flicker, Leon and Bockxmeer, Frank M van and Power, Christine and Marques-Vidal, Pedro and Meade, Tom and Marmot, Michael G and Ferro, Jose M and Paulos-Pinheiro, Sofia and Humphries, Steve E and Talmud, Philippa J and Mateo Leach, Irene and Verweij, Niek and Linneberg, Allan and Skaaby, Tea and Doevendans, Pieter A and Cramer, Maarten J and van der Harst, Pim and Klungel, Olaf H and Dowling, Nicole F and Dominiczak, Anna F and Kumari, Meena and Nicolaides, Andrew N and Weikert, Cornelia and Boeing, Heiner and Ebrahim, Shah and Gaunt, Tom R and Price, Jackie F and Lannfelt, Lars and Peasey, Anne and Kubinova, Ruzena and Pajak, Andrzej and Malyutina, Sofia and Voevoda, Mikhail I and Tamosiunas, Abdonas and Maitland-van der Zee, Anke H and Norman, Paul E and Hankey, Graeme J and Bergmann, Manuela M and Hofman, Albert and Franco, Oscar H and Cooper, Jackie and Palmen, Jutta and Spiering, Wilko and de Jong, Pim A and Kuh, Diana and Hardy, Rebecca and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Ikram, M Arfan and Ford, Ian and Hypp{\"o}nen, Elina and Almeida, Osvaldo P and Wareham, Nicholas J and Khaw, Kay-Tee and Hamsten, Anders and Husemoen, Lise Lotte N and Tj{\o}nneland, Anne and Tolstrup, Janne S and Rimm, Eric and Beulens, Joline W J and Verschuren, W M Monique and Onland-Moret, N Charlotte and Hofker, Marten H and Wannamethee, S Goya and Whincup, Peter H and Morris, Richard and Vicente, Astrid M and Watkins, Hugh and Farrall, Martin and Jukema, J Wouter and Meschia, James and Cupples, L Adrienne and Sharp, Stephen J and Fornage, Myriam and Kooperberg, Charles and LaCroix, Andrea Z and Dai, James Y and Lanktree, Matthew B and Siscovick, David S and Jorgenson, Eric and Spring, Bonnie and Coresh, Josef and Li, Yun R and Buxbaum, Sarah G and Schreiner, Pamela J and Ellison, R Curtis and Tsai, Michael Y and Patel, Sanjay R and Redline, Susan and Johnson, Andrew D and Hoogeveen, Ron C and Hakonarson, Hakon and Rotter, Jerome I and Boerwinkle, Eric and de Bakker, Paul I W and Kivimaki, Mika and Asselbergs, Folkert W and Sattar, Naveed and Lawlor, Debbie A and Whittaker, John and Davey Smith, George and Mukamal, Kenneth and Psaty, Bruce M and Wilson, James G and Lange, Leslie A and Hamidovic, Ajna and Hingorani, Aroon D and Nordestgaard, B{\o}rge G and Bobak, Martin and Leon, David A and Langenberg, Claudia and Palmer, Tom M and Reiner, Alex P and Keating, Brendan J and Dudbridge, Frank and Casas, Juan P} } @article {6555, title = {Association of levels of fasting glucose and insulin with rare variants at the chromosome 11p11.2-MADD locus: Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Consortium Targeted Sequencing Study.}, journal = {Circ Cardiovasc Genet}, volume = {7}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Jun}, pages = {374-382}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Common variation at the 11p11.2 locus, encompassing MADD, ACP2, NR1H3, MYBPC3, and SPI1, has been associated in genome-wide association studies with fasting glucose and insulin (FI). In the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology Targeted Sequencing Study, we sequenced 5 gene regions at 11p11.2 to identify rare, potentially functional variants influencing fasting glucose or FI levels.

METHODS AND RESULTS: Sequencing (mean depth, 38{\texttimes}) across 16.1 kb in 3566 individuals without diabetes mellitus identified 653 variants, 79.9\% of which were rare (minor allele frequency <1\%) and novel. We analyzed rare variants in 5 gene regions with FI or fasting glucose using the sequence kernel association test. At NR1H3, 53 rare variants were jointly associated with FI (P=2.73{\texttimes}10(-3)); of these, 7 were predicted to have regulatory function and showed association with FI (P=1.28{\texttimes}10(-3)). Conditioning on 2 previously associated variants at MADD (rs7944584, rs10838687) did not attenuate this association, suggesting that there are >2 independent signals at 11p11.2. One predicted regulatory variant, chr11:47227430 (hg18; minor allele frequency=0.00068), contributed 20.6\% to the overall sequence kernel association test score at NR1H3, lies in intron 2 of NR1H3, and is a predicted binding site for forkhead box A1 (FOXA1), a transcription factor associated with insulin regulation. In human HepG2 hepatoma cells, the rare chr11:47227430 A allele disrupted FOXA1 binding and reduced FOXA1-dependent transcriptional activity.

CONCLUSIONS: Sequencing at 11p11.2-NR1H3 identified rare variation associated with FI. One variant, chr11:47227430, seems to be functional, with the rare A allele reducing transcription factor FOXA1 binding and FOXA1-dependent transcriptional activity.

}, keywords = {Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Blood Glucose, Chromosomes, Human, Pair 11, Cohort Studies, Death Domain Receptor Signaling Adaptor Proteins, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Fasting, Female, Gene Frequency, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genomics, Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factors, Heart Diseases, Humans, Insulin, Male, Middle Aged, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Sequence Analysis, DNA}, issn = {1942-3268}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.113.000169}, author = {Cornes, Belinda K and Brody, Jennifer A and Nikpoor, Naghmeh and Morrison, Alanna C and Chu, Huan and Ahn, Byung Soo and Wang, Shuai and Dauriz, Marco and Barzilay, Joshua I and Dupuis, Jos{\'e}e and Florez, Jose C and Coresh, Josef and Gibbs, Richard A and Kao, W H Linda and Liu, Ching-Ti and McKnight, Barbara and Muzny, Donna and Pankow, James S and Reid, Jeffrey G and White, Charles C and Johnson, Andrew D and Wong, Tien Y and Psaty, Bruce M and Boerwinkle, Eric and Rotter, Jerome I and Siscovick, David S and Sladek, Robert and Meigs, James B} } @article {6590, title = {Association of low-frequency and rare coding-sequence variants with blood lipids and coronary heart disease in 56,000 whites and blacks.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {94}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Feb 06}, pages = {223-32}, abstract = {

Low-frequency coding DNA sequence variants in the proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 gene (PCSK9) lower plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), protect against risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), and have prompted the development of a new class of therapeutics. It is uncertain whether the PCSK9 example represents a paradigm or an isolated exception. We used the "Exome Array" to genotype >200,000 low-frequency and rare coding sequence variants across the genome in 56,538 individuals (42,208 European ancestry [EA] and 14,330 African ancestry [AA]) and tested these variants for association with LDL-C, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and triglycerides. Although we did not identify new genes associated with LDL-C, we did identify four low-frequency (frequencies between 0.1\% and 2\%) variants (ANGPTL8 rs145464906 [c.361C>T; p.Gln121*], PAFAH1B2 rs186808413 [c.482C>T; p.Ser161Leu], COL18A1 rs114139997 [c.331G>A; p.Gly111Arg], and PCSK7 rs142953140 [c.1511G>A; p.Arg504His]) with large effects on HDL-C and/or triglycerides. None of these four variants was associated with risk for CHD, suggesting that examples of low-frequency coding variants with robust effects on both lipids and CHD will be limited.

}, keywords = {1-Alkyl-2-acetylglycerophosphocholine Esterase, Adult, African Continental Ancestry Group, Aged, Alleles, Animals, Cholesterol, HDL, Cholesterol, LDL, Cohort Studies, Coronary Disease, European Continental Ancestry Group, Female, Gene Frequency, Genetic Association Studies, Genetic Code, Genetic Variation, Humans, Linear Models, Male, Mice, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Microtubule-Associated Proteins, Middle Aged, Phenotype, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Subtilisins, Triglycerides}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.01.009}, author = {Peloso, Gina M and Auer, Paul L and Bis, Joshua C and Voorman, Arend and Morrison, Alanna C and Stitziel, Nathan O and Brody, Jennifer A and Khetarpal, Sumeet A and Crosby, Jacy R and Fornage, Myriam and Isaacs, Aaron and Jakobsdottir, Johanna and Feitosa, Mary F and Davies, Gail and Huffman, Jennifer E and Manichaikul, Ani and Davis, Brian and Lohman, Kurt and Joon, Aron Y and Smith, Albert V and Grove, Megan L and Zanoni, Paolo and Redon, Valeska and Demissie, Serkalem and Lawson, Kim and Peters, Ulrike and Carlson, Christopher and Jackson, Rebecca D and Ryckman, Kelli K and Mackey, Rachel H and Robinson, Jennifer G and Siscovick, David S and Schreiner, Pamela J and Mychaleckyj, Josyf C and Pankow, James S and Hofman, Albert and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Harris, Tamara B and Taylor, Kent D and Stafford, Jeanette M and Reynolds, Lindsay M and Marioni, Riccardo E and Dehghan, Abbas and Franco, Oscar H and Patel, Aniruddh P and Lu, Yingchang and Hindy, George and Gottesman, Omri and Bottinger, Erwin P and Melander, Olle and Orho-Melander, Marju and Loos, Ruth J F and Duga, Stefano and Merlini, Piera Angelica and Farrall, Martin and Goel, Anuj and Asselta, Rosanna and Girelli, Domenico and Martinelli, Nicola and Shah, Svati H and Kraus, William E and Li, Mingyao and Rader, Daniel J and Reilly, Muredach P and McPherson, Ruth and Watkins, Hugh and Ardissino, Diego and Zhang, Qunyuan and Wang, Judy and Tsai, Michael Y and Taylor, Herman A and Correa, Adolfo and Griswold, Michael E and Lange, Leslie A and Starr, John M and Rudan, Igor and Eiriksdottir, Gudny and Launer, Lenore J and Ordovas, Jose M and Levy, Daniel and Chen, Y-D Ida and Reiner, Alexander P and Hayward, Caroline and Polasek, Ozren and Deary, Ian J and Borecki, Ingrid B and Liu, Yongmei and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Wilson, James G and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Kooperberg, Charles and Rich, Stephen S and Psaty, Bruce M and Rotter, Jerome I and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Rice, Kenneth and Boerwinkle, Eric and Kathiresan, Sekar and Cupples, L Adrienne} } @article {6548, title = {Associations of NINJ2 sequence variants with incident ischemic stroke in the Cohorts for Heart and Aging in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) consortium.}, journal = {PLoS One}, volume = {9}, year = {2014}, month = {2014}, pages = {e99798}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Stroke, the leading neurologic cause of death and disability, has a substantial genetic component. We previously conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in four prospective studies from the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) consortium and demonstrated that sequence variants near the NINJ2 gene are associated with incident ischemic stroke. Here, we sought to fine-map functional variants in the region and evaluate the contribution of rare variants to ischemic stroke risk.

METHODS AND RESULTS: We sequenced 196 kb around NINJ2 on chromosome 12p13 among 3,986 European ancestry participants, including 475 ischemic stroke cases, from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, Cardiovascular Health Study, and Framingham Heart Study. Meta-analyses of single-variant tests for 425 common variants (minor allele frequency [MAF] >= 1\%) confirmed the original GWAS results and identified an independent intronic variant, rs34166160 (MAF = 0.012), most significantly associated with incident ischemic stroke (HR = 1.80, p = 0.0003). Aggregating 278 putatively-functional variants with MAF<= 1\% using count statistics, we observed a nominally statistically significant association, with the burden of rare NINJ2 variants contributing to decreased ischemic stroke incidence (HR = 0.81; p = 0.026).

CONCLUSION: Common and rare variants in the NINJ2 region were nominally associated with incident ischemic stroke among a subset of CHARGE participants. Allelic heterogeneity at this locus, caused by multiple rare, low frequency, and common variants with disparate effects on risk, may explain the difficulties in replicating the original GWAS results. Additional studies that take into account the complex allelic architecture at this locus are needed to confirm these findings.

}, keywords = {Cell Adhesion Molecules, Neuronal, European Continental Ancestry Group, Female, Genetic Association Studies, Genetic Heterogeneity, Humans, Introns, Ischemia, Male, Myocardial Infarction, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Prospective Studies, Sequence Analysis, DNA}, issn = {1932-6203}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0099798}, author = {Bis, Joshua C and DeStefano, Anita and Liu, Xiaoming and Brody, Jennifer A and Choi, Seung Hoan and Verhaaren, Benjamin F J and Debette, Stephanie and Ikram, M Arfan and Shahar, Eyal and Butler, Kenneth R and Gottesman, Rebecca F and Muzny, Donna and Kovar, Christie L and Psaty, Bruce M and Hofman, Albert and Lumley, Thomas and Gupta, Mayetri and Wolf, Philip A and van Duijn, Cornelia and Gibbs, Richard A and Mosley, Thomas H and Longstreth, W T and Boerwinkle, Eric and Seshadri, Sudha and Fornage, Myriam} } @article {6597, title = {Association of exome sequences with plasma C-reactive protein levels in >9000 participants.}, journal = {Hum Mol Genet}, volume = {24}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 Jan 15}, pages = {559-71}, abstract = {

C-reactive protein (CRP) concentration is a heritable systemic marker of inflammation that is associated with cardiovascular disease risk. Genome-wide association studies have identified CRP-associated common variants associated in \~{}25 genes. Our aims were to apply exome sequencing to (1) assess whether the candidate loci contain rare coding variants associated with CRP levels and (2) perform an exome-wide search for rare variants in novel genes associated with CRP levels. We exome-sequenced 6050 European-Americans (EAs) and 3109 African-Americans (AAs) from the NHLBI-ESP and the CHARGE consortia, and performed association tests of sequence data with measured CRP levels. In single-variant tests across candidate loci, a novel rare (minor allele frequency = 0.16\%) CRP-coding variant (rs77832441-A; p.Thr59Met) was associated with 53\% lower mean CRP levels (P = 2.9 {\texttimes} 10(-6)). We replicated the association of rs77832441 in an exome array analysis of 11 414 EAs (P = 3.0 {\texttimes} 10(-15)). Despite a strong effect on CRP levels, rs77832441 was not associated with inflammation-related phenotypes including coronary heart disease. We also found evidence for an AA-specific association of APOE-ε2 rs7214 with higher CRP levels. At the exome-wide significance level (P < 5.0 {\texttimes} 10(-8)), we confirmed associations for reported common variants of HNF1A, CRP, IL6R and TOMM40-APOE. In gene-based tests, a burden of rare/lower frequency variation in CRP in EAs (P <= 6.8 {\texttimes} 10(-4)) and in retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor α (RORA) in AAs (P = 1.7 {\texttimes} 10(-3)) were associated with CRP levels at the candidate gene level (P < 2.0 {\texttimes} 10(-3)). This inquiry did not elucidate novel genes, but instead demonstrated that variants distributed across the allele frequency spectrum within candidate genes contribute to CRP levels.

}, keywords = {Adult, African Americans, C-Reactive Protein, Cardiovascular Diseases, Cohort Studies, European Continental Ancestry Group, Exome, Female, Gene Frequency, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 1-alpha, Humans, Male, Plasma, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Receptors, Interleukin-6, Risk Factors}, issn = {1460-2083}, doi = {10.1093/hmg/ddu450}, author = {Schick, Ursula M and Auer, Paul L and Bis, Joshua C and Lin, Honghuang and Wei, Peng and Pankratz, Nathan and Lange, Leslie A and Brody, Jennifer and Stitziel, Nathan O and Kim, Daniel S and Carlson, Christopher S and Fornage, Myriam and Haessler, Jeffery and Hsu, Li and Jackson, Rebecca D and Kooperberg, Charles and Leal, Suzanne M and Psaty, Bruce M and Boerwinkle, Eric and Tracy, Russell and Ardissino, Diego and Shah, Svati and Willer, Cristen and Loos, Ruth and Melander, Olle and McPherson, Ruth and Hovingh, Kees and Reilly, Muredach and Watkins, Hugh and Girelli, Domenico and Fontanillas, Pierre and Chasman, Daniel I and Gabriel, Stacey B and Gibbs, Richard and Nickerson, Deborah A and Kathiresan, Sekar and Peters, Ulrike and Dupuis, Jos{\'e}e and Wilson, James G and Rich, Stephen S and Morrison, Alanna C and Benjamin, Emelia J and Gross, Myron D and Reiner, Alex P} } @article {6545, title = {Association of mitochondrial DNA levels with frailty and all-cause mortality.}, journal = {J Mol Med (Berl)}, volume = {93}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 Feb}, pages = {177-186}, abstract = {

Mitochondrial function is altered with age and variants in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) modulate risk for several age-related disease states. However, the association of mtDNA copy number, a readily available marker which reflects mitochondrial depletion, energy reserves, and oxidative stress, on aging and mortality in the general population has not been addressed. To assess the association between mtDNA copy number and two primary outcomes--prevalent frailty and all-cause mortality--we utilize data from participants who were from two multicenter, multiethnic, community-based, prospective studies--the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) (1989-2006) and the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study (1987-2013). A total of 4892 participants (43.3\% men) from CHS and 11,509 participants (44.9\% men) from ARIC self-identifying as white or black were included in the analysis. mtDNA copy number, the trait of interest, was measured using a qPCR-based method in CHS and an array-based method in ARIC from DNA isolated from whole blood in participants from both cohorts. In race-stratified meta-analyses, we observe a significant inverse association of mtDNA copy number with age and higher mtDNA copy number in women relative to men. Lower mtDNA copy number was also significantly associated with prevalent frailty in white participants from CHS (OR 0.91, 95\% CI 0.85-0.97). Additionally, mtDNA copy number was a strong independent predictor of all-cause mortality in an age- and sex-adjusted, race-stratified analysis of 16,401 participants from both cohorts with a pooled hazard ratio of 1.47 (95\% CI 1.33-1.62) for the lowest quintile of mtDNA copy number relative to the highest quintile. Key messages: Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) copy number is associated with age and sex. Lower mtDNA copy number is also associated with prevalent frailty. mtDNA copy number is a significant predictor of all-cause mortality in a multiethnic population.

}, keywords = {African Americans, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, DNA, Mitochondrial, European Continental Ancestry Group, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Gene Dosage, Geriatric Assessment, Humans, Kaplan-Meier Estimate, Male, Mortality, Odds Ratio, Population Surveillance, Prospective Studies, Surveys and Questionnaires, United States}, issn = {1432-1440}, doi = {10.1007/s00109-014-1233-3}, author = {Ashar, Foram N and Moes, Anna and Moore, Ann Z and Grove, Megan L and Chaves, Paulo H M and Coresh, Josef and Newman, Anne B and Matteini, Amy M and Bandeen-Roche, Karen and Boerwinkle, Eric and Walston, Jeremy D and Arking, Dan E} } @article {6689, title = {Association of Rare Loss-Of-Function Alleles in HAL, Serum Histidine: Levels and Incident Coronary Heart Disease.}, journal = {Circ Cardiovasc Genet}, volume = {8}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 Apr}, pages = {351-5}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Histidine is a semiessential amino acid with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Few data are available on the associations between genetic variants, histidine levels, and incident coronary heart disease (CHD) in a population-based sample.

METHODS AND RESULTS: By conducting whole exome sequencing on 1152 African Americans in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study and focusing on loss-of-function (LoF) variants, we identified 3 novel rare LoF variants in HAL, a gene that encodes histidine ammonia-lyase in the first step of histidine catabolism. These LoF variants had large effects on blood histidine levels (β=0.26; P=1.2{\texttimes}10(-13)). The positive association with histidine levels was replicated by genotyping an independent sample of 718 ARIC African Americans (minor allele frequency=1\%; P=1.2{\texttimes}10(-4)). In addition, high blood histidine levels were associated with reduced risk of developing incident CHD with an average of 21.5 years of follow-up among African Americans (hazard ratio=0.18; P=1.9{\texttimes}10(-4)). This finding was validated in an independent sample of European Americans from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) Offspring Cohort. However, LoF variants in HAL were not directly significantly associated with incident CHD after meta-analyzing results from the CHARGE Consortium.

CONCLUSIONS: Three LoF mutations in HAL were associated with increased histidine levels, which in turn were shown to be inversely related to the risk of CHD among both African Americans and European Americans. Future investigations on the association between HAL gene variation and CHD are warranted.

}, keywords = {Adult, African Americans, Alleles, Coronary Disease, European Continental Ancestry Group, Female, Histidine, Histidine Ammonia-Lyase, Humans, Male, Mutation}, issn = {1942-3268}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.114.000697}, author = {Yu, Bing and Li, Alexander H and Muzny, Donna and Veeraraghavan, Narayanan and de Vries, Paul S and Bis, Joshua C and Musani, Solomon K and Alexander, Danny and Morrison, Alanna C and Franco, Oscar H and Uitterlinden, Andre and Hofman, Albert and Dehghan, Abbas and Wilson, James G and Psaty, Bruce M and Gibbs, Richard and Wei, Peng and Boerwinkle, Eric} } @article {7005, title = {Association of the IGF1 gene with fasting insulin levels.}, journal = {Eur J Hum Genet}, volume = {24}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Aug}, pages = {1337-43}, abstract = {

Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-I) has been associated with insulin resistance. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of fasting insulin (FI) identified single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) near the IGF1 gene, raising two hypotheses: (1) these associations are mediated by IGF-I levels and (2) these noncoding variants either tag other functional variants in the region or are directly functional. In our study, analyses including 5141 individuals from population-based cohorts suggest that FI associations near IGF1 are not mediated by IGF-I. Analyses of targeted sequencing data in 3539 individuals reveal a large number of novel rare variants at the IGF1 locus and show a FI association with a subset of rare nonsynonymous variants (PSKAT=5.7 {\texttimes} 10(-4)). Conditional analyses suggest that this association is partly explained by the GWAS signal and the presence of a residual independent rare variant effect (Pconditional=0.019). Annotation using ENCODE data suggests that the GWAS variants may have a direct functional role in insulin biology. In conclusion, our study provides insight into variation present at the IGF1 locus and into the genetic architecture underlying FI levels, suggesting that FI associations of SNVs near IGF1 are not mediated by IGF-I and suggesting a role for both rare nonsynonymous and common functional variants in insulin biology.

}, issn = {1476-5438}, doi = {10.1038/ejhg.2016.4}, author = {Willems, Sara M and Cornes, Belinda K and Brody, Jennifer A and Morrison, Alanna C and Lipovich, Leonard and Dauriz, Marco and Chen, Yuning and Liu, Ching-Ti and Rybin, Denis V and Gibbs, Richard A and Muzny, Donna and Pankow, James S and Psaty, Bruce M and Boerwinkle, Eric and Rotter, Jerome I and Siscovick, David S and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Kaplan, Robert C and Isaacs, Aaron and Dupuis, Jos{\'e}e and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Meigs, James B} } @article {7553, title = {Analysis commons, a team approach to discovery in a big-data environment for genetic epidemiology.}, journal = {Nat Genet}, volume = {49}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 Oct 27}, pages = {1560-1563}, issn = {1546-1718}, doi = {10.1038/ng.3968}, author = {Brody, Jennifer A and Morrison, Alanna C and Bis, Joshua C and O{\textquoteright}Connell, Jeffrey R and Brown, Michael R and Huffman, Jennifer E and Ames, Darren C and Carroll, Andrew and Conomos, Matthew P and Gabriel, Stacey and Gibbs, Richard A and Gogarten, Stephanie M and Gupta, Namrata and Jaquish, Cashell E and Johnson, Andrew D and Lewis, Joshua P and Liu, Xiaoming and Manning, Alisa K and Papanicolaou, George J and Pitsillides, Achilleas N and Rice, Kenneth M and Salerno, William and Sitlani, Colleen M and Smith, Nicholas L and Heckbert, Susan R and Laurie, Cathy C and Mitchell, Braxton D and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Rich, Stephen S and Rotter, Jerome I and Wilson, James G and Boerwinkle, Eric and Psaty, Bruce M and Cupples, L Adrienne} } @article {7548, title = {Association of Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number With Cardiovascular Disease.}, journal = {JAMA Cardiol}, volume = {2}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 Nov 01}, pages = {1247-1255}, abstract = {

Importance: Mitochondrial dysfunction is a core component of the aging process and may play a key role in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNA-CN), which represents the number of mitochondria per cell and number of mitochondrial genomes per mitochondrion, is an indirect biomarker of mitochondrial function.

Objective: To determine whether mtDNA-CN, measured in an easily accessible tissue (buffy coat/circulating leukocytes), can improve risk classification for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and help guide initiation of statin therapy for primary prevention of CVD.

Design, Setting, and Participants: Prospective, population-based cohort analysis including 21 870 participants (20 163 free from CVD at baseline) from 3 studies: Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study (ARIC), and Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). The mean follow-up was 13.5 years. The study included 11 153 participants from ARIC, 4830 from CHS, and 5887 from MESA. Analysis of the data was conducted from March 10, 2014, to January 29, 2017.

Exposures: Mitochondrial DNA-CN measured from buffy coat/circulating leukocytes.

Main Outcomes and Measures: Incident CVD, which combines coronary heart disease, defined as the first incident myocardial infarction or death owing to coronary heart disease, and stroke, defined as the first nonfatal stroke or death owing to stroke.

Results: Of the 21 870 participants, the mean age was 62.4 years (ARIC, 57.9 years; MESA, 62.4 years; and CHS, 72.5 years), and 54.7\% of participants were women. The hazard ratios for incident coronary heart disease, stroke, and CVD associated with a 1-SD decrease in mtDNA-CN were 1.29 (95\% CI, 1.24-1.33), 1.11 (95\% CI, 1.06-1.16), and 1.23 (95\% CI, 1.19-1.26). The associations persisted after adjustment for traditional CVD risk factors. Addition of mtDNA-CN to the 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Pooled Cohorts Equations for estimating 10-year hard atherosclerosis CVD risk was associated with improved risk classification (continuous net reclassification index, 0.194; 95\% CI, 0.130-0.258; P < .001). Mitochondrial DNA-CN further improved sensitivity and specificity for the 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association recommendations on initiating statin therapy for primary prevention of ASCVD (net 221 individuals appropriately downclassified and net 15 individuals appropriately upclassified).

Conclusions and Relevance: Mitochondrial DNA-CN was independently associated with incident CVD in 3 large prospective studies and may have potential clinical utility in improving CVD risk classification.

}, issn = {2380-6591}, doi = {10.1001/jamacardio.2017.3683}, author = {Ashar, Foram N and Zhang, Yiyi and Longchamps, Ryan J and Lane, John and Moes, Anna and Grove, Megan L and Mychaleckyj, Josyf C and Taylor, Kent D and Coresh, Josef and Rotter, Jerome I and Boerwinkle, Eric and Pankratz, Nathan and Guallar, Eliseo and Arking, Dan E} } @article {7989, title = {Association of variants in HTRA1 and NOTCH3 with MRI-defined extremes of cerebral small vessel disease in older subjects.}, journal = {Brain}, year = {2019}, month = {2019 Mar 11}, abstract = {

We report a composite extreme phenotype design using distribution of white matter hyperintensities and brain infarcts in a population-based cohort of older persons for gene-mapping of cerebral small vessel disease. We demonstrate its application in the 3C-Dijon whole exome sequencing (WES) study (n = 1924, nWESextremes = 512), with both single variant and gene-based association tests. We used other population-based cohort studies participating in the CHARGE consortium for replication, using whole exome sequencing (nWES = 2,868, nWESextremes = 956) and genome-wide genotypes (nGW = 9924, nGWextremes = 3308). We restricted our study to candidate genes known to harbour mutations for Mendelian small vessel disease: NOTCH3, HTRA1, COL4A1, COL4A2 and TREX1. We identified significant associations of a common intronic variant in HTRA1, rs2293871 using single variant association testing (Pdiscovery = 8.21 {\texttimes} 10-5, Preplication = 5.25 {\texttimes} 10-3, Pcombined = 4.72 {\texttimes} 10-5) and of NOTCH3 using gene-based tests (Pdiscovery = 1.61 {\texttimes} 10-2, Preplication = 3.99 {\texttimes} 10-2, Pcombined = 5.31 {\texttimes} 10-3). Follow-up analysis identified significant association of rs2293871 with small vessel ischaemic stroke, and two blood expression quantitative trait loci of HTRA1 in linkage disequilibrium. Additionally, we identified two participants in the 3C-Dijon cohort (0.4\%) carrying heterozygote genotypes at known pathogenic variants for familial small vessel disease within NOTCH3 and HTRA1. In conclusion, our proof-of-concept study provides strong evidence that using a novel composite MRI-derived phenotype for extremes of small vessel disease can facilitate the identification of genetic variants underlying small vessel disease, both common variants and those with rare and low frequency. The findings demonstrate shared mechanisms and a continuum between genes underlying Mendelian small vessel disease and those contributing to the common, multifactorial form of the disease.

}, issn = {1460-2156}, doi = {10.1093/brain/awz024}, author = {Mishra, Aniket and Chauhan, Ganesh and Violleau, Marie-Helene and Vojinovic, Dina and Jian, Xueqiu and Bis, Joshua C and Li, Shuo and Saba, Yasaman and Grenier-Boley, Benjamin and Yang, Qiong and Bartz, Traci M and Hofer, Edith and Soumar{\'e}, A{\"\i}cha and Peng, Fen and Duperron, Marie-Gabrielle and Foglio, Mario and Mosley, Thomas H and Schmidt, Reinhold and Psaty, Bruce M and Launer, Lenore J and Boerwinkle, Eric and Zhu, Yicheng and Mazoyer, Bernard and Lathrop, Mark and Bellenguez, C{\'e}line and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Ikram, M Arfan and Schmidt, Helena and Longstreth, W T and Fornage, Myriam and Seshadri, Sudha and Joutel, Anne and Tzourio, Christophe and Debette, Stephanie} } @article {8198, title = {Associations of autozygosity with a broad range of human phenotypes.}, journal = {Nat Commun}, volume = {10}, year = {2019}, month = {2019 Oct 31}, pages = {4957}, abstract = {

In many species, the offspring of related parents suffer reduced reproductive success, a phenomenon known as inbreeding depression. In humans, the importance of this effect has remained unclear, partly because reproduction between close relatives is both rare and frequently associated with confounding social factors. Here, using genomic inbreeding coefficients (F) for >1.4 million individuals, we show that F is significantly associated (p < 0.0005) with apparently deleterious changes in 32 out of 100 traits analysed. These changes are associated with runs of homozygosity (ROH), but not with common variant homozygosity, suggesting that genetic variants associated with inbreeding depression are predominantly rare. The effect on fertility is striking: F equivalent to the offspring of first cousins is associated with a 55\% decrease [95\% CI 44-66\%] in the odds of having children. Finally, the effects of F are confirmed within full-sibling pairs, where the variation in F is independent of all environmental confounding.

}, issn = {2041-1723}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-019-12283-6}, author = {Clark, David W and Okada, Yukinori and Moore, Kristjan H S and Mason, Dan and Pirastu, Nicola and Gandin, Ilaria and Mattsson, Hannele and Barnes, Catriona L K and Lin, Kuang and Zhao, Jing Hua and Deelen, Patrick and Rohde, Rebecca and Schurmann, Claudia and Guo, Xiuqing and Giulianini, Franco and Zhang, Weihua and Medina-G{\'o}mez, Carolina and Karlsson, Robert and Bao, Yanchun and Bartz, Traci M and Baumbach, Clemens and Biino, Ginevra and Bixley, Matthew J and Brumat, Marco and Chai, Jin-Fang and Corre, Tanguy and Cousminer, Diana L and Dekker, Annelot M and Eccles, David A and van Eijk, Kristel R and Fuchsberger, Christian and Gao, He and Germain, Marine and Gordon, Scott D and de Haan, Hugoline G and Harris, Sarah E and Hofer, Edith and Huerta-Chagoya, Alicia and Igartua, Catherine and Jansen, Iris E and Jia, Yucheng and Kacprowski, Tim and Karlsson, Torgny and Kleber, Marcus E and Li, Shengchao Alfred and Li-Gao, Ruifang and Mahajan, Anubha and Matsuda, Koichi and Meidtner, Karina and Meng, Weihua and Montasser, May E and van der Most, Peter J and Munz, Matthias and Nutile, Teresa and Palviainen, Teemu and Prasad, Gauri and Prasad, Rashmi B and Priyanka, Tallapragada Divya Sri and Rizzi, Federica and Salvi, Erika and Sapkota, Bishwa R and Shriner, Daniel and Skotte, Line and Smart, Melissa C and Smith, Albert Vernon and van der Spek, Ashley and Spracklen, Cassandra N and Strawbridge, Rona J and Tajuddin, Salman M and Trompet, Stella and Turman, Constance and Verweij, Niek and Viberti, Clara and Wang, Lihua and Warren, Helen R and Wootton, Robyn E and Yanek, Lisa R and Yao, Jie and Yousri, Noha A and Zhao, Wei and Adeyemo, Adebowale A and Afaq, Saima and Aguilar-Salinas, Carlos Alberto and Akiyama, Masato and Albert, Matthew L and Allison, Matthew A and Alver, Maris and Aung, Tin and Azizi, Fereidoun and Bentley, Amy R and Boeing, Heiner and Boerwinkle, Eric and Borja, Judith B and de Borst, Gert J and Bottinger, Erwin P and Broer, Linda and Campbell, Harry and Chanock, Stephen and Chee, Miao-Li and Chen, Guanjie and Chen, Yii-der I and Chen, Zhengming and Chiu, Yen-Feng and Cocca, Massimiliano and Collins, Francis S and Concas, Maria Pina and Corley, Janie and Cugliari, Giovanni and van Dam, Rob M and Damulina, Anna and Daneshpour, Maryam S and Day, Felix R and Delgado, Graciela E and Dhana, Klodian and Doney, Alexander S F and D{\"o}rr, Marcus and Doumatey, Ayo P and Dzimiri, Nduna and Ebenesersd{\'o}ttir, S Sunna and Elliott, Joshua and Elliott, Paul and Ewert, Ralf and Felix, Janine F and Fischer, Krista and Freedman, Barry I and Girotto, Giorgia and Goel, Anuj and G{\"o}gele, Martin and Goodarzi, Mark O and Graff, Mariaelisa and Granot-Hershkovitz, Einat and Grodstein, Francine and Guarrera, Simonetta and Gudbjartsson, Daniel F and Guity, Kamran and Gunnarsson, Bjarni and Guo, Yu and Hagenaars, Saskia P and Haiman, Christopher A and Halevy, Avner and Harris, Tamara B and Hedayati, Mehdi and van Heel, David A and Hirata, Makoto and H{\"o}fer, Imo and Hsiung, Chao Agnes and Huang, Jinyan and Hung, Yi-Jen and Ikram, M Arfan and Jagadeesan, Anuradha and Jousilahti, Pekka and Kamatani, Yoichiro and Kanai, Masahiro and Kerrison, Nicola D and Kessler, Thorsten and Khaw, Kay-Tee and Khor, Chiea Chuen and de Kleijn, Dominique P V and Koh, Woon-Puay and Kolcic, Ivana and Kraft, Peter and Kr{\"a}mer, Bernhard K and Kutalik, Zolt{\'a}n and Kuusisto, Johanna and Langenberg, Claudia and Launer, Lenore J and Lawlor, Deborah A and Lee, I-Te and Lee, Wen-Jane and Lerch, Markus M and Li, Liming and Liu, Jianjun and Loh, Marie and London, Stephanie J and Loomis, Stephanie and Lu, Yingchang and Luan, Jian{\textquoteright}an and M{\"a}gi, Reedik and Manichaikul, Ani W and Manunta, Paolo and M{\'a}sson, G{\'\i}sli and Matoba, Nana and Mei, Xue W and Meisinger, Christa and Meitinger, Thomas and Mezzavilla, Massimo and Milani, Lili and Millwood, Iona Y and Momozawa, Yukihide and Moore, Amy and Morange, Pierre-Emmanuel and Moreno-Macias, Hortensia and Mori, Trevor A and Morrison, Alanna C and Muka, Taulant and Murakami, Yoshinori and Murray, Alison D and de Mutsert, Ren{\'e}e and Mychaleckyj, Josyf C and Nalls, Mike A and Nauck, Matthias and Neville, Matt J and Nolte, Ilja M and Ong, Ken K and Orozco, Lorena and Padmanabhan, Sandosh and P{\'a}lsson, Gunnar and Pankow, James S and Pattaro, Cristian and Pattie, Alison and Polasek, Ozren and Poulter, Neil and Pramstaller, Peter P and Quintana-Murci, Lluis and R{\"a}ikk{\"o}nen, Katri and Ralhan, Sarju and Rao, Dabeeru C and van Rheenen, Wouter and Rich, Stephen S and Ridker, Paul M and Rietveld, Cornelius A and Robino, Antonietta and van Rooij, Frank J A and Ruggiero, Daniela and Saba, Yasaman and Sabanayagam, Charumathi and Sabater-Lleal, Maria and Sala, Cinzia Felicita and Salomaa, Veikko and Sandow, Kevin and Schmidt, Helena and Scott, Laura J and Scott, William R and Sedaghati-Khayat, Bahareh and Sennblad, Bengt and van Setten, Jessica and Sever, Peter J and Sheu, Wayne H-H and Shi, Yuan and Shrestha, Smeeta and Shukla, Sharvari Rahul and Sigurdsson, Jon K and Sikka, Timo Tonis and Singh, Jai Rup and Smith, Blair H and Stan{\v c}{\'a}kov{\'a}, Alena and Stanton, Alice and Starr, John M and Stefansdottir, Lilja and Straker, Leon and Sulem, Patrick and Sveinbjornsson, Gardar and Swertz, Morris A and Taylor, Adele M and Taylor, Kent D and Terzikhan, Natalie and Tham, Yih-Chung and Thorleifsson, Gudmar and Thorsteinsdottir, Unnur and Tillander, Annika and Tracy, Russell P and Tusi{\'e}-Luna, Teresa and Tzoulaki, Ioanna and Vaccargiu, Simona and Vangipurapu, Jagadish and Veldink, Jan H and Vitart, Veronique and V{\"o}lker, Uwe and Vuoksimaa, Eero and Wakil, Salma M and Waldenberger, Melanie and Wander, Gurpreet S and Wang, Ya Xing and Wareham, Nicholas J and Wild, Sarah and Yajnik, Chittaranjan S and Yuan, Jian-Min and Zeng, Lingyao and Zhang, Liang and Zhou, Jie and Amin, Najaf and Asselbergs, Folkert W and Bakker, Stephan J L and Becker, Diane M and Lehne, Benjamin and Bennett, David A and van den Berg, Leonard H and Berndt, Sonja I and Bharadwaj, Dwaipayan and Bielak, Lawrence F and Bochud, Murielle and Boehnke, Mike and Bouchard, Claude and Bradfield, Jonathan P and Brody, Jennifer A and Campbell, Archie and Carmi, Shai and Caulfield, Mark J and Cesarini, David and Chambers, John C and Chandak, Giriraj Ratan and Cheng, Ching-Yu and Ciullo, Marina and Cornelis, Marilyn and Cusi, Daniele and Smith, George Davey and Deary, Ian J and Dorajoo, Rajkumar and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Ellinghaus, David and Erdmann, Jeanette and Eriksson, Johan G and Evangelou, Evangelos and Evans, Michele K and Faul, Jessica D and Feenstra, Bjarke and Feitosa, Mary and Foisy, Sylvain and Franke, Andre and Friedlander, Yechiel and Gasparini, Paolo and Gieger, Christian and Gonzalez, Clicerio and Goyette, Philippe and Grant, Struan F A and Griffiths, Lyn R and Groop, Leif and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Gyllensten, Ulf and Hakonarson, Hakon and Hamsten, Anders and van der Harst, Pim and Heng, Chew-Kiat and Hicks, Andrew A and Hochner, Hagit and Huikuri, Heikki and Hunt, Steven C and Jaddoe, Vincent W V and De Jager, Philip L and Johannesson, Magnus and Johansson, Asa and Jonas, Jost B and Jukema, J Wouter and Junttila, Juhani and Kaprio, Jaakko and Kardia, Sharon L R and Karpe, Fredrik and Kumari, Meena and Laakso, Markku and van der Laan, Sander W and Lahti, Jari and Laudes, Matthias and Lea, Rodney A and Lieb, Wolfgang and Lumley, Thomas and Martin, Nicholas G and M{\"a}rz, Winfried and Matullo, Giuseppe and McCarthy, Mark I and Medland, Sarah E and Merriman, Tony R and Metspalu, Andres and Meyer, Brian F and Mohlke, Karen L and Montgomery, Grant W and Mook-Kanamori, Dennis and Munroe, Patricia B and North, Kari E and Nyholt, Dale R and O{\textquoteright}Connell, Jeffery R and Ober, Carole and Oldehinkel, Albertine J and Palmas, Walter and Palmer, Colin and Pasterkamp, Gerard G and Patin, Etienne and Pennell, Craig E and Perusse, Louis and Peyser, Patricia A and Pirastu, Mario and Polderman, Tinca J C and Porteous, David J and Posthuma, Danielle and Psaty, Bruce M and Rioux, John D and Rivadeneira, Fernando and Rotimi, Charles and Rotter, Jerome I and Rudan, Igor and den Ruijter, Hester M and Sanghera, Dharambir K and Sattar, Naveed and Schmidt, Reinhold and Schulze, Matthias B and Schunkert, Heribert and Scott, Robert A and Shuldiner, Alan R and Sim, Xueling and Small, Neil and Smith, Jennifer A and Sotoodehnia, Nona and Tai, E-Shyong and Teumer, Alexander and Timpson, Nicholas J and Toniolo, Daniela and Tr{\'e}gou{\"e}t, David-Alexandre and Tuomi, Tiinamaija and Vollenweider, Peter and Wang, Carol A and Weir, David R and Whitfield, John B and Wijmenga, Cisca and Wong, Tien-Yin and Wright, John and Yang, Jingyun and Yu, Lei and Zemel, Babette S and Zonderman, Alan B and Perola, Markus and Magnusson, Patrik K E and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Kooner, Jaspal S and Chasman, Daniel I and Loos, Ruth J F and Franceschini, Nora and Franke, Lude and Haley, Chris S and Hayward, Caroline and Walters, Robin G and Perry, John R B and Esko, T{\~o}nu and Helgason, Agnar and Stefansson, Kari and Joshi, Peter K and Kubo, Michiaki and Wilson, James F} } @article {8988, title = {Association of low-frequency and rare coding variants with information processing speed.}, journal = {Transl Psychiatry}, volume = {11}, year = {2021}, month = {2021 12 04}, pages = {613}, abstract = {

Measures of information processing speed vary between individuals and decline with age. Studies of aging twins suggest heritability may be as high as 67\%. The Illumina HumanExome Bead Chip genotyping array was used to examine the association of rare coding variants with performance on the Digit-Symbol Substitution Test (DSST) in community-dwelling adults participating in the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Consortium. DSST scores were available for 30,576 individuals of European ancestry from nine cohorts and for 5758 individuals of African ancestry from four cohorts who were older than 45 years and free of dementia and clinical stroke. Linear regression models adjusted for age and gender were used for analysis of single genetic variants, and the T5, T1, and T01 burden tests that aggregate the number of rare alleles by gene were also applied. Secondary analyses included further adjustment for education. Meta-analyses to combine cohort-specific results were carried out separately for each ancestry group. Variants in RNF19A reached the threshold for statistical significance (p = 2.01 {\texttimes} 10) using the T01 test in individuals of European descent. RNF19A belongs to the class of E3 ubiquitin ligases that confer substrate specificity when proteins are ubiquitinated and targeted for degradation through the 26S proteasome. Variants in SLC22A7 and OR51A7 were suggestively associated with DSST scores after adjustment for education for African-American participants and in the European cohorts, respectively. Further functional characterization of its substrates will be required to confirm the role of RNF19A in cognitive function.

}, keywords = {Adult, Aging, Cognition, Genome-Wide Association Study, Geroscience, Humans, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Ubiquitin-Protein Ligases}, issn = {2158-3188}, doi = {10.1038/s41398-021-01736-6}, author = {Bressler, Jan and Davies, Gail and Smith, Albert V and Saba, Yasaman and Bis, Joshua C and Jian, Xueqiu and Hayward, Caroline and Yanek, Lisa and Smith, Jennifer A and Mirza, Saira S and Wang, Ruiqi and Adams, Hieab H H and Becker, Diane and Boerwinkle, Eric and Campbell, Archie and Cox, Simon R and Eiriksdottir, Gudny and Fawns-Ritchie, Chloe and Gottesman, Rebecca F and Grove, Megan L and Guo, Xiuqing and Hofer, Edith and Kardia, Sharon L R and Knol, Maria J and Koini, Marisa and Lopez, Oscar L and Marioni, Riccardo E and Nyquist, Paul and Pattie, Alison and Polasek, Ozren and Porteous, David J and Rudan, Igor and Satizabal, Claudia L and Schmidt, Helena and Schmidt, Reinhold and Sidney, Stephen and Simino, Jeannette and Smith, Blair H and Turner, Stephen T and van der Lee, Sven J and Ware, Erin B and Whitmer, Rachel A and Yaffe, Kristine and Yang, Qiong and Zhao, Wei and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Launer, Lenore J and Fitzpatrick, Annette L and Psaty, Bruce M and Fornage, Myriam and Arfan Ikram, M and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Seshadri, Sudha and Mosley, Thomas H and Deary, Ian J} } @article {8997, title = {Association of mitochondrial DNA copy number with cardiometabolic diseases.}, journal = {Cell Genom}, volume = {1}, year = {2021}, month = {2021 Oct 13}, abstract = {

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is present in multiple copies in human cells. We evaluated cross-sectional associations of whole blood mtDNA copy number (CN) with several cardiometabolic disease traits in 408,361 participants of multiple ancestries in TOPMed and UK Biobank. Age showed a threshold association with mtDNA CN: among younger participants (<65 years of age), each additional 10 years of age was associated with 0.03 standard deviation (s.d.) higher level of mtDNA CN ( = 0.0014) versus a 0.14 s.d. lower level of mtDNA CN ( = 1.82 {\texttimes} 10) among older participants (>=65 years). At lower mtDNA CN levels, we found age-independent associations with increased odds of obesity ( = 5.6 {\texttimes} 10), hypertension ( = 2.8 {\texttimes} 10), diabetes ( = 3.6 {\texttimes} 10), and hyperlipidemia ( = 6.3 {\texttimes} 10). The observed decline in mtDNA CN after 65 years of age may be a key to understanding age-related diseases.

}, issn = {2666-979X}, doi = {10.1016/j.xgen.2021.100006}, author = {Liu, Xue and Longchamps, Ryan J and Wiggins, Kerri L and Raffield, Laura M and Bielak, Lawrence F and Zhao, Wei and Pitsillides, Achilleas and Blackwell, Thomas W and Yao, Jie and Guo, Xiuqing and Kurniansyah, Nuzulul and Thyagarajan, Bharat and Pankratz, Nathan and Rich, Stephen S and Taylor, Kent D and Peyser, Patricia A and Heckbert, Susan R and Seshadri, Sudha and Cupples, L Adrienne and Boerwinkle, Eric and Grove, Megan L and Larson, Nicholas B and Smith, Jennifer A and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Sofer, Tamar and Fitzpatrick, Annette L and Fornage, Myriam and Ding, Jun and Correa, Adolfo and Abecasis, Goncalo and Psaty, Bruce M and Wilson, James G and Levy, Daniel and Rotter, Jerome I and Bis, Joshua C and Satizabal, Claudia L and Arking, Dan E and Liu, Chunyu} } @article {9042, title = {Assessing the contribution of rare variants to complex trait heritability from whole-genome sequence data.}, journal = {Nat Genet}, volume = {54}, year = {2022}, month = {2022 Mar}, pages = {263-273}, abstract = {

Analyses of data from genome-wide association studies on unrelated individuals have shown that, for human traits and diseases, approximately one-third to two-thirds of heritability is captured by common SNPs. However, it is not known whether the remaining heritability is due to the imperfect tagging of causal variants by common SNPs, in particular whether the causal variants are rare, or whether it is overestimated due to bias in inference from pedigree data. Here we estimated heritability for height and body mass index (BMI) from whole-genome sequence data on 25,465 unrelated individuals of European ancestry. The estimated heritability was 0.68 (standard error 0.10) for height and 0.30 (standard error 0.10) for body mass index. Low minor allele frequency variants in low linkage disequilibrium (LD) with neighboring variants were enriched for heritability, to a greater extent for protein-altering variants, consistent with negative selection. Our results imply that rare variants, in particular those in regions of low linkage disequilibrium, are a major source of the still missing heritability of complex traits and disease.

}, issn = {1546-1718}, doi = {10.1038/s41588-021-00997-7}, author = {Wainschtein, Pierrick and Jain, Deepti and Zheng, Zhili and Cupples, L Adrienne and Shadyab, Aladdin H and McKnight, Barbara and Shoemaker, Benjamin M and Mitchell, Braxton D and Psaty, Bruce M and Kooperberg, Charles and Liu, Ching-Ti and Albert, Christine M and Roden, Dan and Chasman, Daniel I and Darbar, Dawood and Lloyd-Jones, Donald M and Arnett, Donna K and Regan, Elizabeth A and Boerwinkle, Eric and Rotter, Jerome I and O{\textquoteright}Connell, Jeffrey R and Yanek, Lisa R and de Andrade, Mariza and Allison, Matthew A and McDonald, Merry-Lynn N and Chung, Mina K and Fornage, Myriam and Chami, Nathalie and Smith, Nicholas L and Ellinor, Patrick T and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Mathias, Rasika A and Loos, Ruth J F and Rich, Stephen S and Lubitz, Steven A and Heckbert, Susan R and Redline, Susan and Guo, Xiuqing and Chen, Y -D Ida and Laurie, Cecelia A and Hernandez, Ryan D and McGarvey, Stephen T and Goddard, Michael E and Laurie, Cathy C and North, Kari E and Lange, Leslie A and Weir, Bruce S and Yengo, Loic and Yang, Jian and Visscher, Peter M} } @article {9387, title = {Aberrant activation of TCL1A promotes stem cell expansion in clonal haematopoiesis.}, journal = {Nature}, volume = {616}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 Apr}, pages = {755-763}, abstract = {

Mutations in a diverse set of driver genes increase the fitness of haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), leading to clonal haematopoiesis. These lesions are precursors for blood cancers, but the basis of their fitness advantage remains largely unknown, partly owing to a paucity of large cohorts in which the clonal expansion rate has been assessed by longitudinal sampling. Here, to circumvent this limitation, we developed a method to infer the expansion rate from data from a single time point. We applied this method to 5,071 people with clonal haematopoiesis. A genome-wide association study revealed that a common inherited polymorphism in the TCL1A promoter was associated with a slower expansion rate in clonal haematopoiesis overall, but the effect varied by driver gene. Those carrying this protective allele exhibited markedly reduced growth rates or prevalence of clones with driver mutations in TET2, ASXL1, SF3B1 and SRSF2, but~this effect was not seen in~clones with~driver mutations in DNMT3A. TCL1A was not expressed in normal or DNMT3A-mutated HSCs, but the introduction of mutations in TET2 or ASXL1 led to the expression of TCL1A protein and the expansion of HSCs in vitro. The protective allele restricted TCL1A expression and expansion of mutant HSCs, as did experimental~knockdown of TCL1A expression. Forced expression of TCL1A promoted the expansion of human HSCs in vitro and mouse HSCs in vivo. Our results indicate that the fitness advantage of several commonly mutated driver genes in clonal haematopoiesis may be mediated by TCL1A activation.

}, keywords = {Alleles, Animals, Clonal Hematopoiesis, Genome-Wide Association Study, Hematopoiesis, Hematopoietic Stem Cells, Humans, Mice, Mutation, Promoter Regions, Genetic}, issn = {1476-4687}, doi = {10.1038/s41586-023-05806-1}, author = {Weinstock, Joshua S and Gopakumar, Jayakrishnan and Burugula, Bala Bharathi and Uddin, Md Mesbah and Jahn, Nikolaus and Belk, Julia A and Bouzid, Hind and Daniel, Bence and Miao, Zhuang and Ly, Nghi and Mack, Taralynn M and Luna, Sofia E and Prothro, Katherine P and Mitchell, Shaneice R and Laurie, Cecelia A and Broome, Jai G and Taylor, Kent D and Guo, Xiuqing and Sinner, Moritz F and von Falkenhausen, Aenne S and K{\"a}{\"a}b, Stefan and Shuldiner, Alan R and O{\textquoteright}Connell, Jeffrey R and Lewis, Joshua P and Boerwinkle, Eric and Barnes, Kathleen C and Chami, Nathalie and Kenny, Eimear E and Loos, Ruth J F and Fornage, Myriam and Hou, Lifang and Lloyd-Jones, Donald M and Redline, Susan and Cade, Brian E and Psaty, Bruce M and Bis, Joshua C and Brody, Jennifer A and Silverman, Edwin K and Yun, Jeong H and Qiao, Dandi and Palmer, Nicholette D and Freedman, Barry I and Bowden, Donald W and Cho, Michael H and DeMeo, Dawn L and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Yanek, Lisa R and Becker, Lewis C and Kardia, Sharon L R and Peyser, Patricia A and He, Jiang and Rienstra, Michiel and van der Harst, Pim and Kaplan, Robert and Heckbert, Susan R and Smith, Nicholas L and Wiggins, Kerri L and Arnett, Donna K and Irvin, Marguerite R and Tiwari, Hemant and Cutler, Michael J and Knight, Stacey and Muhlestein, J Brent and Correa, Adolfo and Raffield, Laura M and Gao, Yan and de Andrade, Mariza and Rotter, Jerome I and Rich, Stephen S and Tracy, Russell P and Konkle, Barbara A and Johnsen, Jill M and Wheeler, Marsha M and Smith, J Gustav and Melander, Olle and Nilsson, Peter M and Custer, Brian S and Duggirala, Ravindranath and Curran, Joanne E and Blangero, John and McGarvey, Stephen and Williams, L Keoki and Xiao, Shujie and Yang, Mao and Gu, C Charles and Chen, Yii-Der Ida and Lee, Wen-Jane and Marcus, Gregory M and Kane, John P and Pullinger, Clive R and Shoemaker, M Benjamin and Darbar, Dawood and Roden, Dan M and Albert, Christine and Kooperberg, Charles and Zhou, Ying and Manson, JoAnn E and Desai, Pinkal and Johnson, Andrew D and Mathias, Rasika A and Blackwell, Thomas W and Abecasis, Goncalo R and Smith, Albert V and Kang, Hyun M and Satpathy, Ansuman T and Natarajan, Pradeep and Kitzman, Jacob O and Whitsel, Eric A and Reiner, Alexander P and Bick, Alexander G and Jaiswal, Siddhartha} } @article {9502, title = {Association Between Whole Blood-Derived Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number, Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol, and Cardiovascular Disease Risk.}, journal = {J Am Heart Assoc}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 Oct 07}, pages = {e029090}, abstract = {

Background The relationship between mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNA CN) and cardiovascular disease remains elusive. Methods and Results We performed cross-sectional and prospective association analyses of blood-derived mtDNA CN and cardiovascular disease outcomes in 27 316 participants in 8 cohorts of multiple racial and ethnic groups with whole-genome sequencing. We also performed Mendelian randomization to explore causal relationships of mtDNA CN with coronary heart disease (CHD) and cardiometabolic risk factors (obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia). <0.01 was used for significance. We validated most of the previously reported associations between mtDNA CN and cardiovascular disease outcomes. For example, 1-SD unit lower level of mtDNA CN was associated with 1.08 (95\% CI, 1.04-1.12; <0.001) times the hazard for developing incident CHD, adjusting for covariates. Mendelian randomization analyses showed no causal effect from a lower level of mtDNA CN to a higher CHD risk (β=0.091; =0.11) or in the reverse direction (β=-0.012; =0.076). Additional bidirectional Mendelian randomization analyses revealed that low-density lipoprotein cholesterol had a causal effect on mtDNA CN (β=-0.084; <0.001), but the reverse direction was not significant (=0.059). No causal associations were observed between mtDNA CN and obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, in either direction. Multivariable Mendelian randomization analyses showed no causal effect of CHD on mtDNA CN, controlling for low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level (=0.52), whereas there was a strong direct causal effect of higher low-density lipoprotein cholesterol on lower mtDNA CN, adjusting for CHD status (β=-0.092; <0.001). Conclusions Our findings indicate that high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol may underlie the complex relationships between mtDNA CN and vascular atherosclerosis.

}, issn = {2047-9980}, doi = {10.1161/JAHA.122.029090}, author = {Liu, Xue and Sun, Xianbang and Zhang, Yuankai and Jiang, Wenqing and Lai, Meng and Wiggins, Kerri L and Raffield, Laura M and Bielak, Lawrence F and Zhao, Wei and Pitsillides, Achilleas and Haessler, Jeffrey and Zheng, Yinan and Blackwell, Thomas W and Yao, Jie and Guo, Xiuqing and Qian, Yong and Thyagarajan, Bharat and Pankratz, Nathan and Rich, Stephen S and Taylor, Kent D and Peyser, Patricia A and Heckbert, Susan R and Seshadri, Sudha and Boerwinkle, Eric and Grove, Megan L and Larson, Nicholas B and Smith, Jennifer A and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Fitzpatrick, Annette L and Fornage, Myriam and Ding, Jun and Carson, April P and Abecasis, Goncalo and Dupuis, Jos{\'e}e and Reiner, Alexander and Kooperberg, Charles and Hou, Lifang and Psaty, Bruce M and Wilson, James G and Levy, Daniel and Rotter, Jerome I and Bis, Joshua C and Satizabal, Claudia L and Arking, Dan E and Liu, Chunyu} } @article {9323, title = {Association of Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number With Brain MRI Markers and Cognitive Function: A Meta-analysis of Community-Based Cohorts.}, journal = {Neurology}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 Mar 16}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Previous studies suggest lower mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) copy number (CN) is associated with neurodegenerative diseases. However, whether mtDNA CN in whole blood is related to endophenotypes of Alzheimer{\textquoteright}s disease (AD) and AD related dementia (AD/ADRD) needs further investigation. We assessed the association of mtDNA CN with cognitive function and MRI measures in community-based samples of middle-aged to older adults.

METHODS: We included dementia-free participants from nine diverse community-based cohorts with whole-genome sequencing in the Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) program. Circulating mtDNA CN was estimated as twice the ratio of the average coverage of mtDNA to nuclear DNA. Brain MRI markers included total brain, hippocampal, and white matter hyperintensity volumes. General cognitive function was derived from distinct cognitive domains. We performed cohort-specific association analyses of mtDNA CN with AD/ADRD endophenotypes assessed within {\textpm}5 years (i.e., cross-sectional analyses) or 5 to 20 years after blood draw (i.e., prospective analyses) adjusting for potential confounders. We further explored associations stratified by sex and age (<60 vs. >=60 years). Fixed-effects or sample size-weighted meta-analyses were performed to combine results. Finally, we performed Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses to assess causality.

RESULTS: We included up to 19,152 participants (mean age 59 years, 57\% women). Higher mtDNA CN was cross-sectionally associated with better general cognitive function (Beta=0.04; 95\% CI 0.02, 0.06) independent of age, sex, batch effects, race/ethnicity, time between blood draw and cognitive evaluation, cohort-specific variables, and education. Additional adjustment for blood cell counts or cardiometabolic traits led to slightly attenuated results. We observed similar significant associations with cognition in prospective analyses, although of reduced magnitude. We found no significant associations between mtDNA CN and brain MRI measures in meta-analyses. MR analyses did not reveal a causal relation between mtDNA CN in blood and cognition.

DISCUSSION: Higher mtDNA CN in blood is associated with better current and future general cognitive function in large and diverse communities across the US. Although MR analyses did not support a causal role, additional research is needed to assess causality. Circulating mtDNA CN could serve nevertheless as a biomarker of current and future cognitive function in the community.

}, issn = {1526-632X}, doi = {10.1212/WNL.0000000000207157}, author = {Zhang, Yuankai and Liu, Xue and Wiggins, Kerri L and Kurniansyah, Nuzulul and Guo, Xiuqing and Rodrigue, Amanda L and Zhao, Wei and Yanek, Lisa R and Ratliff, Scott M and Pitsillides, Achilleas and Aguirre Pati{\~n}o, Juan Sebastian and Sofer, Tamar and Arking, Dan E and Austin, Thomas R and Beiser, Alexa S and Blangero, John and Boerwinkle, Eric and Bressler, Jan and Curran, Joanne E and Hou, Lifang and Hughes, Timothy M and Kardia, Sharon L and Launer, Lenore and Levy, Daniel and Mosley, Tom H and Nasrallah, Ilya M and Rich, Stephen S and Rotter, Jerome I and Seshadri, Sudha and Tarraf, Wassim and Gonz{\'a}lez, Kevin A and Ramachandran, Vasan and Yaffe, Kristine and Nyquist, Paul A and Psaty, Bruce M and DeCarli, Charles S and Smith, Jennifer A and Glahn, David C and Gonz{\'a}lez, Hector M and Bis, Joshua C and Fornage, Myriam and Heckbert, Susan R and Fitzpatrick, Annette L and Liu, Chunyu and Satizabal, Claudia L} } @article {9285, title = {Association of Rare Protein-Truncating DNA Variants in APOB or PCSK9 With Low-density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Level and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease.}, journal = {JAMA Cardiol}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 Feb 01}, abstract = {

IMPORTANCE: Protein-truncating variants (PTVs) in apolipoprotein B (APOB) and proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) are associated with significantly lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol concentrations. The association of these PTVs with coronary heart disease (CHD) warrants further characterization in large, multiracial prospective cohort studies.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association of PTVs in APOB and PCSK9 with LDL cholesterol concentrations and CHD risk.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This studied included participants from 5 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) studies and the UK Biobank. NHLBI study participants aged 5 to 84 years were recruited between 1971 and 2002 across the US and underwent whole-genome sequencing. UK Biobank participants aged 40 to 69 years were recruited between 2006 and 2010 in the UK and underwent whole-exome sequencing. Data were analyzed from June 2021 to October 2022.

EXPOSURES: PTVs in APOB and PCSK9.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Estimated untreated LDL cholesterol levels and CHD.

RESULTS: Among 19 073 NHLBI participants (10 598 [55.6\%] female; mean [SD] age, 52 [17] years), 139 (0.7\%) carried an APOB or PCSK9 PTV, which was associated with 49 mg/dL (95\% CI, 43-56) lower estimated untreated LDL cholesterol level. Over a median (IQR) follow-up of 21.5 (13.9-29.4) years, incident CHD was observed in 12 of 139 carriers (8.6\%) vs 3029 of 18 934 noncarriers (16.0\%), corresponding to an adjusted hazard ratio of 0.51 (95\% CI, 0.28-0.89; P = .02). Among 190 464 UK Biobank participants (104 831 [55.0\%] female; mean [SD] age, 57 [8] years), 662 (0.4\%) carried a PTV, which was associated with 45 mg/dL (95\% CI, 42-47) lower estimated untreated LDL cholesterol level. Estimated CHD risk by age 75 years was 3.7\% (95\% CI, 2.0-5.3) in carriers vs 7.0\% (95\% CI, 6.9-7.2) in noncarriers, corresponding to an adjusted hazard ratio of 0.51 (95\% CI, 0.32-0.81; P = .004).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Among 209 537 individuals in this study, 0.4\% carried an APOB or PCSK9 PTV that was associated with less exposure to LDL cholesterol and a 49\% lower risk of CHD.

}, issn = {2380-6591}, doi = {10.1001/jamacardio.2022.5271}, author = {Dron, Jacqueline S and Patel, Aniruddh P and Zhang, Yiyi and Jurgens, Sean J and Maamari, Dimitri J and Wang, Minxian and Boerwinkle, Eric and Morrison, Alanna C and de Vries, Paul S and Fornage, Myriam and Hou, Lifang and Lloyd-Jones, Donald M and Psaty, Bruce M and Tracy, Russell P and Bis, Joshua C and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Levy, Daniel and Heard-Costa, Nancy and Rich, Stephen S and Guo, Xiuqing and Taylor, Kent D and Gibbs, Richard A and Rotter, Jerome I and Willer, Cristen J and Oelsner, Elizabeth C and Moran, Andrew E and Peloso, Gina M and Natarajan, Pradeep and Khera, Amit V} } @article {9388, title = {Association of Severe Hypercholesterolemia and Familial Hypercholesterolemia Genotype With Risk of Coronary Heart Disease.}, journal = {Circulation}, volume = {147}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 May 16}, pages = {1556-1559}, keywords = {Coronary Disease, Genotype, Humans, Hypercholesterolemia, Hyperlipoproteinemia Type II}, issn = {1524-4539}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.123.064168}, author = {Zhang, Yiyi and Dron, Jacqueline S and Bellows, Brandon K and Khera, Amit V and Liu, Junxiu and Balte, Pallavi P and Oelsner, Elizabeth C and Amr, Sami Samir and Lebo, Matthew S and Nagy, Anna and Peloso, Gina M and Natarajan, Pradeep and Rotter, Jerome I and Willer, Cristen and Boerwinkle, Eric and Ballantyne, Christie M and Lutsey, Pamela L and Fornage, Myriam and Lloyd-Jones, Donald M and Hou, Lifang and Psaty, Bruce M and Bis, Joshua C and Floyd, James S and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Heard-Costa, Nancy L and Carson, April P and Hall, Michael E and Rich, Stephen S and Guo, Xiuqing and Kazi, Dhruv S and de Ferranti, Sarah D and Moran, Andrew E} } @article {9580, title = {Association analysis of mitochondrial DNA heteroplasmic variants: methods and application.}, journal = {medRxiv}, year = {2024}, month = {2024 Jan 13}, abstract = {

We rigorously assessed a comprehensive association testing framework for heteroplasmy, employing both simulated and real-world data. This framework employed a variant allele fraction (VAF) threshold and harnessed multiple gene-based tests for robust identification and association testing of heteroplasmy. Our simulation studies demonstrated that gene-based tests maintained an appropriate type I error rate at α=0.001. Notably, when 5\% or more heteroplasmic variants within a target region were linked to an outcome, burden-extension tests (including the adaptive burden test, variable threshold burden test, and z-score weighting burden test) outperformed the sequence kernel association test (SKAT) and the original burden test. Applying this framework, we conducted association analyses on whole-blood derived heteroplasmy in 17,507 individuals of African and European ancestries (31\% of African Ancestry, mean age of 62, with 58\% women) with whole genome sequencing data. We performed both cohort- and ancestry-specific association analyses, followed by meta-analysis on bothpooled samples and within each ancestry group. Our results suggest that mtDNA-Enco ded genes/regions are likely to exhibit varying rates in somatic aging, with the notably strong associations observed between heteroplasmy in the and genes ( <0.001) and advance aging by the Original Burden test. In contrast, SKAT identified significant associations ( <0.001) between diabetes and the aggregated effects of heteroplasmy in several protein-coding genes. Further research is warranted to validate these findings. In summary, our proposed statistical framework represents a valuable tool for facilitating association testing of heteroplasmy with disease traits in large human populations.

}, doi = {10.1101/2024.01.12.24301233}, author = {Sun, Xianbang and Bulekova, Katia and Yang, Jian and Lai, Meng and Pitsillides, Achilleas N and Liu, Xue and Zhang, Yuankai and Guo, Xiuqing and Yong, Qian and Raffield, Laura M and Rotter, Jerome I and Rich, Stephen S and Abecasis, Goncalo and Carson, April P and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Bis, Joshua C and Psaty, Bruce M and Boerwinkle, Eric and Fitzpatrick, Annette L and Satizabal, Claudia L and Arking, Dan E and Ding, Jun and Levy, Daniel and Liu, Chunyu} }