@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 {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 {9107, title = {Whole exome sequencing of 14 389 individuals from the ESP and CHARGE consortia identifies novel rare variation associated with hemostatic factors.}, journal = {Hum Mol Genet}, year = {2022}, month = {2022 May 12}, abstract = {

Plasma levels of fibrinogen, coagulation factors VII and VIII, and von Willebrand factor (vWF) are four intermediate phenotypes that are heritable and have been associated with the risk of clinical thrombotic events. To identify rare and low-frequency variants associated with these hemostatic factors, we conducted whole exome sequencing in 10 860 individuals of European ancestry (EA) and 3529 African Americans (AAs) from the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Consortium and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute{\textquoteright}s Exome Sequencing Project (ESP). Gene-based tests demonstrated significant associations with rare variation (minor allele frequency < 5\%) in FGG (with fibrinogen, p = 9.1x10-13), F7 (with factor VII, p = 1.3x10-72; seven novel variants), and VWF (with factor VIII and vWF; p = 3.2x10-14; one novel variant). These eight novel rare variant associations were independent of the known common variants at these loci and tended to have much larger effect sizes. In addition, one of the rare novel variants in F7 was significantly associated with an increased risk of venous thromboembolism in AAs (Ile200Ser; rs141219108; p = 4.2x10-5). After restricting gene-based analyses to only loss-of-function variants, a novel significant association was detected and replicated between factor VIII levels and a stop-gain mutation exclusive to African Americans (rs3211938) in CD36. This variant has previously been linked to dyslipidemia but not with levels of a hemostatic factor. These efforts represent the largest integration of whole exome sequence data from two national projects to identify genetic variation associated with plasma hemostatic factors.

}, issn = {1460-2083}, doi = {10.1093/hmg/ddac100}, author = {Pankratz, Nathan and Wei, Peng and Brody, Jennifer A and Chen, Ming-Huei and Vries, Paul S and Huffman, Jennifer E and Stimson, Mary Rachel and Auer, Paul L and Boerwinkle, Eric and Cushman, Mary and Maat, Moniek P M and Folsom, Aaron R and Franco, Oscar H and Gibbs, Richard A and Haagenson, Kelly K and Hofman, Albert and Johnsen, Jill M and Kovar, Christie L and Kraaij, Robert and McKnight, Barbara and Metcalf, Ginger A and Muzny, Donna and Psaty, Bruce M and Tang, Weihong and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Rooij, Jeroen G J and Dehghan, Abbas and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Reiner, Alex P and Morrison, Alanna C and Smith, Nicholas L} }