@article {7343, title = {Comparison of HapMap and 1000 Genomes Reference Panels in a Large-Scale Genome-Wide Association Study.}, journal = {PLoS One}, volume = {12}, year = {2017}, month = {2017}, pages = {e0167742}, abstract = {

An increasing number of genome-wide association (GWA) studies are now using the higher resolution 1000 Genomes Project reference panel (1000G) for imputation, with the expectation that 1000G imputation will lead to the discovery of additional associated loci when compared to HapMap imputation. In order to assess the improvement of 1000G over HapMap imputation in identifying associated loci, we compared the results of GWA studies of circulating fibrinogen based on the two reference panels. Using both HapMap and 1000G imputation we performed a meta-analysis of 22 studies comprising the same 91,953 individuals. We identified six additional signals using 1000G imputation, while 29 loci were associated using both HapMap and 1000G imputation. One locus identified using HapMap imputation was not significant using 1000G imputation. The genome-wide significance threshold of 5{\texttimes}10-8 is based on the number of independent statistical tests using HapMap imputation, and 1000G imputation may lead to further independent tests that should be corrected for. When using a stricter Bonferroni correction for the 1000G GWA study (P-value < 2.5{\texttimes}10-8), the number of loci significant only using HapMap imputation increased to 4 while the number of loci significant only using 1000G decreased to 5. In conclusion, 1000G imputation enabled the identification of 20\% more loci than HapMap imputation, although the advantage of 1000G imputation became less clear when a stricter Bonferroni correction was used. More generally, our results provide insights that are applicable to the implementation of other dense reference panels that are under development.

}, issn = {1932-6203}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0167742}, author = {de Vries, Paul S and Sabater-Lleal, Maria and Chasman, Daniel I and Trompet, Stella and Ahluwalia, Tarunveer S and Teumer, Alexander and Kleber, Marcus E and Chen, Ming-Huei and Wang, Jie Jin and Attia, John R and Marioni, Riccardo E and Steri, Maristella and Weng, Lu-Chen and Pool, Rene and Grossmann, Vera and Brody, Jennifer A and Venturini, Cristina and Tanaka, Toshiko and Rose, Lynda M and Oldmeadow, Christopher and Mazur, Johanna and Basu, Saonli and Fr{\r a}nberg, Mattias and Yang, Qiong and Ligthart, Symen and Hottenga, Jouke J and Rumley, Ann and Mulas, Antonella and de Craen, Anton J M and Grotevendt, Anne and Taylor, Kent D and Delgado, Graciela E and Kifley, Annette and Lopez, Lorna M and Berentzen, Tina L and Mangino, Massimo and Bandinelli, Stefania and Morrison, Alanna C and Hamsten, Anders and Tofler, Geoffrey and de Maat, Moniek P M and Draisma, Harmen H M and Lowe, Gordon D and Zoledziewska, Magdalena and Sattar, Naveed and Lackner, Karl J and V{\"o}lker, Uwe and McKnight, Barbara and Huang, Jie and Holliday, Elizabeth G and McEvoy, Mark A and Starr, John M and Hysi, Pirro G and Hernandez, Dena G and Guan, Weihua and Rivadeneira, Fernando and McArdle, Wendy L and Slagboom, P Eline and Zeller, Tanja and Psaty, Bruce M and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and de Geus, Eco J C and Stott, David J and Binder, Harald and Hofman, Albert and Franco, Oscar H and Rotter, Jerome I and Ferrucci, Luigi and Spector, Tim D and Deary, Ian J and M{\"a}rz, Winfried and Greinacher, Andreas and Wild, Philipp S and Cucca, Francesco and Boomsma, Dorret I and Watkins, Hugh and Tang, Weihong and Ridker, Paul M and Jukema, Jan W and Scott, Rodney J and Mitchell, Paul and Hansen, Torben and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Smith, Nicholas L and Strachan, David P and Dehghan, Abbas} } @article {8711, title = {Chromosome Xq23 is associated with lower atherogenic lipid concentrations and favorable cardiometabolic indices.}, journal = {Nat Commun}, volume = {12}, year = {2021}, month = {2021 04 12}, pages = {2182}, abstract = {

Autosomal genetic analyses of blood lipids have yielded key insights for coronary heart disease (CHD). However, X chromosome genetic variation is understudied for blood lipids in large sample sizes. We now analyze genetic and blood lipid data in a high-coverage whole X chromosome sequencing study of 65,322 multi-ancestry participants and perform replication among 456,893 European participants. Common alleles on chromosome Xq23 are strongly associated with reduced total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides (min P = 8.5 {\texttimes} 10), with similar effects for males and females. Chromosome Xq23 lipid-lowering alleles are associated with reduced odds for CHD among 42,545 cases and 591,247 controls (P = 1.7 {\texttimes} 10), and reduced odds for diabetes mellitus type 2 among 54,095 cases and 573,885 controls (P = 1.4 {\texttimes} 10). Although we observe an association with increased BMI, waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI is reduced, bioimpedance analyses indicate increased gluteofemoral fat, and abdominal MRI analyses indicate reduced visceral adiposity. Co-localization analyses strongly correlate increased CHRDL1 gene expression, particularly in adipose tissue, with reduced concentrations of blood lipids.

}, issn = {2041-1723}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-021-22339-1}, author = {Natarajan, Pradeep and Pampana, Akhil and Graham, Sarah E and Ruotsalainen, Sanni E and Perry, James A and de Vries, Paul S and Broome, Jai G and Pirruccello, James P and Honigberg, Michael C and Aragam, Krishna and Wolford, Brooke and Brody, Jennifer A and Antonacci-Fulton, Lucinda and Arden, Moscati and Aslibekyan, Stella and Assimes, Themistocles L and Ballantyne, Christie M and Bielak, Lawrence F and Bis, Joshua C and Cade, Brian E and Do, Ron and Doddapaneni, Harsha and Emery, Leslie S and Hung, Yi-Jen and Irvin, Marguerite R and Khan, Alyna T and Lange, Leslie and Lee, Jiwon and Lemaitre, Rozenn N and Martin, Lisa W and Metcalf, Ginger and Montasser, May E and Moon, Jee-Young and Muzny, Donna and O{\textquoteright}Connell, Jeffrey R and Palmer, Nicholette D and Peralta, Juan M and Peyser, Patricia A and Stilp, Adrienne M and Tsai, Michael and Wang, Fei Fei and Weeks, Daniel E and Yanek, Lisa R and Wilson, James G and Abecasis, Goncalo and Arnett, Donna K and Becker, Lewis C and Blangero, John and Boerwinkle, Eric and Bowden, Donald W and Chang, Yi-Cheng and Chen, Yii-der I and Choi, Won Jung and Correa, Adolfo and Curran, Joanne E and Daly, Mark J and Dutcher, Susan K and Ellinor, Patrick T and Fornage, Myriam and Freedman, Barry I and Gabriel, Stacey and Germer, Soren and Gibbs, Richard A and He, Jiang and Hveem, Kristian and Jarvik, Gail P and Kaplan, Robert C and Kardia, Sharon L R and Kenny, Eimear and Kim, Ryan W and Kooperberg, Charles and Laurie, Cathy C and Lee, Seonwook and Lloyd-Jones, Don M and Loos, Ruth J F and Lubitz, Steven A and Mathias, Rasika A and Martinez, Karine A Viaud and McGarvey, Stephen T and Mitchell, Braxton D and Nickerson, Deborah A and North, Kari E and Palotie, Aarno and Park, Cheol Joo and Psaty, Bruce M and Rao, D C and Redline, Susan and Reiner, Alexander P and Seo, Daekwan and Seo, Jeong-Sun and Smith, Albert V and Tracy, Russell P and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Kathiresan, Sekar and Cupples, L Adrienne and Rotter, Jerome I and Morrison, Alanna C and Rich, Stephen S and Ripatti, Samuli and Willer, Cristen and Peloso, Gina M} } @article {9246, title = {Correlations between complex human phenotypes vary by genetic background, gender, and environment.}, journal = {Cell Rep Med}, volume = {3}, year = {2022}, month = {2022 Dec 20}, pages = {100844}, abstract = {

We develop a closed-form Haseman-Elston estimator for genetic and environmental correlation coefficients between complex phenotypes, which we term HEc, that is as precise as GCTA yet \~{}20{\texttimes} faster. We estimate genetic and environmental correlations between over 7,000 phenotype pairs in subgroups from the Trans-Omics in Precision Medicine (TOPMed) program. We demonstrate substantial differences in both heritabilities and genetic correlations for multiple phenotypes and phenotype pairs between individuals of self-reported Black, Hispanic/Latino, and White backgrounds. We similarly observe differences in many of the genetic and environmental correlations between genders. To estimate the contribution of genetics to the observed phenotypic correlation, we introduce "fractional genetic correlation" as the fraction of phenotypic correlation explained by genetics. Finally, we quantify the enrichment of correlations between phenotypic domains, each of which is comprised of multiple phenotypes. Altogether, we demonstrate that the observed correlations between complex human phenotypes depend on the genetic background of the individuals, their gender, and their environment.

}, keywords = {Female, Genetic Background, Humans, Male, Phenotype}, issn = {2666-3791}, doi = {10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100844}, author = {Elgart, Michael and Goodman, Matthew O and Isasi, Carmen and Chen, Han and Morrison, Alanna C and de Vries, Paul S and Xu, Huichun and Manichaikul, Ani W and Guo, Xiuqing and Franceschini, Nora and Psaty, Bruce M and Rich, Stephen S and Rotter, Jerome I and Lloyd-Jones, Donald M and Fornage, Myriam and Correa, Adolfo and Heard-Costa, Nancy L and Vasan, Ramachandran S and Hernandez, Ryan and Kaplan, Robert C and Redline, Susan and Sofer, Tamar} } @article {9194, title = {Cross-Ancestry Investigation of Venous Thromboembolism Genomic Predictors.}, journal = {Circulation}, volume = {146}, year = {2022}, month = {2022 Oct 18}, pages = {1225-1242}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a life-threatening vascular event with environmental and genetic determinants. Recent VTE genome-wide association studies (GWAS) meta-analyses involved nearly 30 000 VTE cases and identified up to 40 genetic loci associated with VTE risk, including loci not previously suspected to play a role in hemostasis. The aim of our research was to expand discovery of new genetic loci associated with VTE by using cross-ancestry genomic resources.

METHODS: We present new cross-ancestry meta-analyzed GWAS results involving up to 81 669 VTE cases from 30 studies, with replication of novel loci in independent populations and loci characterization through in silico genomic interrogations.

RESULTS: In our genetic discovery effort that included 55 330 participants with VTE (47 822 European, 6320 African, and 1188 Hispanic ancestry), we identified 48 novel associations, of which 34 were replicated after correction for multiple testing. In our combined discovery-replication analysis (81 669 VTE participants) and ancestry-stratified meta-analyses (European, African, and Hispanic), we identified another 44 novel associations, which are new candidate VTE-associated loci requiring replication. In total, across all GWAS meta-analyses, we identified 135 independent genomic loci significantly associated with VTE risk. A genetic risk score of the significantly associated loci in Europeans identified a 6-fold increase in risk for those in the top 1\% of scores compared with those with average scores. We also identified 31 novel transcript associations in transcriptome-wide association studies and 8 novel candidate genes with protein quantitative-trait locus Mendelian randomization analyses. In silico interrogations of hemostasis and hematology traits and a large phenome-wide association analysis of the 135 GWAS loci provided insights to biological pathways contributing to VTE, with some loci contributing to VTE through well-characterized coagulation pathways and others providing new data on the role of hematology traits, particularly platelet function. Many of the replicated loci are outside of known or currently hypothesized pathways to thrombosis.

CONCLUSIONS: Our cross-ancestry GWAS meta-analyses identified new loci associated with VTE. These findings highlight new pathways to thrombosis and provide novel molecules that may be useful in the development of improved antithrombosis treatments.

}, keywords = {Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genomics, Humans, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Quantitative Trait Loci, Thrombosis, Venous Thromboembolism}, issn = {1524-4539}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.059675}, author = {Thibord, Florian and Klarin, Derek and Brody, Jennifer A and Chen, Ming-Huei and Levin, Michael G and Chasman, Daniel I and Goode, Ellen L and Hveem, Kristian and Teder-Laving, Maris and Martinez-Perez, Angel and A{\"\i}ssi, Dylan and Daian-Bacq, Delphine and Ito, Kaoru and Natarajan, Pradeep and Lutsey, Pamela L and Nadkarni, Girish N and de Vries, Paul S and Cuellar-Partida, Gabriel and Wolford, Brooke N and Pattee, Jack W and Kooperberg, Charles and Braekkan, Sigrid K and Li-Gao, Ruifang and Saut, No{\'e}mie and Sept, Corriene and Germain, Marine and Judy, Renae L and Wiggins, Kerri L and Ko, Darae and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Taylor, Kent D and Giulianini, Franco and de Andrade, Mariza and N{\o}st, Therese H and Boland, Anne and Empana, Jean-Philippe and Koyama, Satoshi and Gilliland, Thomas and Do, Ron and Huffman, Jennifer E and Wang, Xin and Zhou, Wei and Manuel Soria, Jose and Carlos Souto, Juan and Pankratz, Nathan and Haessler, Jeffery and Hindberg, Kristian and Rosendaal, Frits R and Turman, Constance and Olaso, Robert and Kember, Rachel L and Bartz, Traci M and Lynch, Julie A and Heckbert, Susan R and Armasu, Sebastian M and Brumpton, Ben and Smadja, David M and Jouven, Xavier and Komuro, Issei and Clapham, Katharine R and Loos, Ruth J F and Willer, Cristen J and Sabater-Lleal, Maria and Pankow, James S and Reiner, Alexander P and Morelli, Vania M and Ridker, Paul M and Vlieg, Astrid van Hylckama and Deleuze, Jean-Francois and Kraft, Peter and Rader, Daniel J and Min Lee, Kyung and Psaty, Bruce M and Heidi Skogholt, Anne and Emmerich, Joseph and Suchon, Pierre and Rich, Stephen S and Vy, Ha My T and Tang, Weihong and Jackson, Rebecca D and Hansen, John-Bjarne and Morange, Pierre-Emmanuel and Kabrhel, Christopher and Tr{\'e}gou{\"e}t, David-Alexandre and Damrauer, Scott M and Johnson, Andrew D and Smith, Nicholas L} } @article {9479, title = {Carriers of rare damaging genetic variants are at lower risk of atherosclerotic disease.}, journal = {medRxiv}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 Aug 16}, abstract = {

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

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

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

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

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