@article {5875, title = {Insights into the genetic architecture of early stage age-related macular degeneration: a genome-wide association study meta-analysis.}, journal = {PLoS One}, volume = {8}, year = {2013}, month = {2013}, pages = {e53830}, abstract = {

Genetic factors explain a majority of risk variance for age-related macular degeneration (AMD). While genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for late AMD implicate genes in complement, inflammatory and lipid pathways, the genetic architecture of early AMD has been relatively under studied. We conducted a GWAS meta-analysis of early AMD, including 4,089 individuals with prevalent signs of early AMD (soft drusen and/or retinal pigment epithelial changes) and 20,453 individuals without these signs. For various published late AMD risk loci, we also compared effect sizes between early and late AMD using an additional 484 individuals with prevalent late AMD. GWAS meta-analysis confirmed previously reported association of variants at the complement factor H (CFH) (peak P = 1.5{\texttimes}10(-31)) and age-related maculopathy susceptibility 2 (ARMS2) (P = 4.3{\texttimes}10(-24)) loci, and suggested Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) polymorphisms (rs2075650; P = 1.1{\texttimes}10(-6)) associated with early AMD. Other possible loci that did not reach GWAS significance included variants in the zinc finger protein gene GLI3 (rs2049622; P = 8.9{\texttimes}10(-6)) and upstream of GLI2 (rs6721654; P = 6.5{\texttimes}10(-6)), encoding retinal Sonic hedgehog signalling regulators, and in the tyrosinase (TYR) gene (rs621313; P = 3.5{\texttimes}10(-6)), involved in melanin biosynthesis. For a range of published, late AMD risk loci, estimated effect sizes were significantly lower for early than late AMD. This study confirms the involvement of multiple established AMD risk variants in early AMD, but suggests weaker genetic effects on the risk of early AMD relative to late AMD. Several biological processes were suggested to be potentially specific for early AMD, including pathways regulating RPE cell melanin content and signalling pathways potentially involved in retinal regeneration, generating hypotheses for further investigation.

}, keywords = {Apolipoproteins E, Complement Factor H, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotype, Humans, Kruppel-Like Transcription Factors, Macular Degeneration, Nerve Tissue Proteins, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Proteins, Risk Factors, Zinc Finger Protein Gli3}, issn = {1932-6203}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0053830}, author = {Holliday, Elizabeth G and Smith, Albert V and Cornes, Belinda K and Buitendijk, Gabri{\"e}lle H S and Jensen, Richard A and Sim, Xueling and Aspelund, Thor and Aung, Tin and Baird, Paul N and Boerwinkle, Eric and Cheng, Ching Yu and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Eiriksdottir, Gudny and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Harris, Tamara and Hewitt, Alex W and Inouye, Michael and Jonasson, Fridbert and Klein, Barbara E K and Launer, Lenore and Li, Xiaohui and Liew, Gerald and Lumley, Thomas and McElduff, Patrick and McKnight, Barbara and Mitchell, Paul and Psaty, Bruce M and Rochtchina, Elena and Rotter, Jerome I and Scott, Rodney J and Tay, Wanting and Taylor, Kent and Teo, Yik Ying and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Viswanathan, Ananth and Xie, Sophia and Vingerling, Johannes R and Klaver, Caroline C W and Tai, E Shyong and Siscovick, David and Klein, Ronald and Cotch, Mary Frances and Wong, Tien Y and Attia, John and Wang, Jie Jin} } @article {6577, title = {Whole-exome sequencing identifies rare and low-frequency coding variants associated with LDL cholesterol.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {94}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Feb 06}, pages = {233-45}, abstract = {

Elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) is a treatable, heritable risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified 157 variants associated with lipid levels but are not well suited to assess the impact of rare and low-frequency variants. To determine whether rare or low-frequency coding variants are associated with LDL-C, we exome sequenced 2,005 individuals, including 554 individuals selected for extreme LDL-C (>98(th) or <2(nd) percentile). Follow-up analyses included sequencing of 1,302 additional individuals and genotype-based analysis of 52,221 individuals. We observed significant evidence of association between LDL-C and the burden of rare or low-frequency variants in PNPLA5, encoding a phospholipase-domain-containing protein, and both known and previously unidentified variants in PCSK9, LDLR and APOB, three known lipid-related genes. The effect sizes for the burden of rare variants for each associated gene were substantially higher than those observed for individual SNPs identified from GWASs. We replicated the PNPLA5 signal in an independent large-scale sequencing study of 2,084 individuals. In conclusion, this large whole-exome-sequencing study for LDL-C identified a gene not known to be implicated in LDL-C and provides unique insight into the design and analysis of similar experiments.

}, keywords = {Adult, Aged, Apolipoproteins E, Cholesterol, LDL, Cohort Studies, Dyslipidemias, Exome, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Gene Frequency, Genetic Code, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotype, Humans, Lipase, Male, Middle Aged, Phenotype, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Proprotein Convertase 9, Proprotein Convertases, Receptors, LDL, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Serine Endopeptidases}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.01.010}, author = {Lange, Leslie A and Hu, Youna and Zhang, He and Xue, Chenyi and Schmidt, Ellen M and Tang, Zheng-Zheng and Bizon, Chris and Lange, Ethan M and Smith, Joshua D and Turner, Emily H and Jun, Goo and Kang, Hyun Min and Peloso, Gina and Auer, Paul and Li, Kuo-Ping and Flannick, Jason and Zhang, Ji and Fuchsberger, Christian and Gaulton, Kyle and Lindgren, Cecilia and Locke, Adam and Manning, Alisa and Sim, Xueling and Rivas, Manuel A and Holmen, Oddgeir L and Gottesman, Omri and Lu, Yingchang and Ruderfer, Douglas and Stahl, Eli A and Duan, Qing and Li, Yun and Durda, Peter and Jiao, Shuo and Isaacs, Aaron and Hofman, Albert and Bis, Joshua C and Correa, Adolfo and Griswold, Michael E and Jakobsdottir, Johanna and Smith, Albert V and Schreiner, Pamela J and Feitosa, Mary F and Zhang, Qunyuan and Huffman, Jennifer E and Crosby, Jacy and Wassel, Christina L and Do, Ron and Franceschini, Nora and Martin, Lisa W and Robinson, Jennifer G and Assimes, Themistocles L and Crosslin, David R and Rosenthal, Elisabeth A and Tsai, Michael and Rieder, Mark J and Farlow, Deborah N and Folsom, Aaron R and Lumley, Thomas and Fox, Ervin R and Carlson, Christopher S and Peters, Ulrike and Jackson, Rebecca D and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Levy, Daniel and Rotter, Jerome I and Taylor, Herman A and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Siscovick, David S and Fornage, Myriam and Borecki, Ingrid B and Hayward, Caroline and Rudan, Igor and Chen, Y Eugene and Bottinger, Erwin P and Loos, Ruth J F and S{\ae}trom, P{\r a}l and Hveem, Kristian and Boehnke, Michael and Groop, Leif and McCarthy, Mark and Meitinger, Thomas and Ballantyne, Christie M and Gabriel, Stacey B and O{\textquoteright}Donnell, Christopher J and Post, Wendy S and North, Kari E and Reiner, Alexander P and Boerwinkle, Eric and Psaty, Bruce M and Altshuler, David and Kathiresan, Sekar and Lin, Dan-Yu and Jarvik, Gail P and Cupples, L Adrienne and Kooperberg, Charles and Wilson, James G and Nickerson, Deborah A and Abecasis, Goncalo R and Rich, Stephen S and Tracy, Russell P and Willer, Cristen J} } @article {6684, title = {Genome-wide studies of verbal declarative memory in nondemented older people: the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology consortium.}, journal = {Biol Psychiatry}, volume = {77}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 Apr 15}, pages = {749-63}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Memory performance in older persons can reflect genetic influences on cognitive function and dementing processes. We aimed to identify genetic contributions to verbal declarative memory in a community setting.

METHODS: We conducted genome-wide association studies for paragraph or word list delayed recall in 19 cohorts from the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology consortium, comprising 29,076 dementia- and stroke-free individuals of European descent, aged >=45 years. Replication of suggestive associations (p < 5 {\texttimes} 10(-6)) was sought in 10,617 participants of European descent, 3811 African-Americans, and 1561 young adults.

RESULTS: rs4420638, near APOE, was associated with poorer delayed recall performance in discovery (p = 5.57 {\texttimes} 10(-10)) and replication cohorts (p = 5.65 {\texttimes} 10(-8)). This association was stronger for paragraph than word list delayed recall and in the oldest persons. Two associations with specific tests, in subsets of the total sample, reached genome-wide significance in combined analyses of discovery and replication (rs11074779 [HS3ST4], p = 3.11 {\texttimes} 10(-8), and rs6813517 [SPOCK3], p = 2.58 {\texttimes} 10(-8)) near genes involved in immune response. A genetic score combining 58 independent suggestive memory risk variants was associated with increasing Alzheimer disease pathology in 725 autopsy samples. Association of memory risk loci with gene expression in 138 human hippocampus samples showed cis-associations with WDR48 and CLDN5, both related to ubiquitin metabolism.

CONCLUSIONS: This largest study to date exploring the genetics of memory function in ~40,000 older individuals revealed genome-wide associations and suggested an involvement of immune and ubiquitin pathways.

}, keywords = {Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Apolipoproteins E, Claudin-5, Cohort Studies, Female, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotype, Humans, Male, Memory Disorders, Middle Aged, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Proteins, Proteoglycans, Regression Analysis, Sulfotransferases, Verbal Learning}, issn = {1873-2402}, doi = {10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.08.027}, author = {Debette, Stephanie and Ibrahim Verbaas, Carla A and Bressler, Jan and Schuur, Maaike and Smith, Albert and Bis, Joshua C and Davies, Gail and Wolf, Christiane and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Chibnik, Lori B and Yang, Qiong and DeStefano, Anita L and de Quervain, Dominique J F and Srikanth, Velandai and Lahti, Jari and Grabe, Hans J and Smith, Jennifer A and Priebe, Lutz and Yu, Lei and Karbalai, Nazanin and Hayward, Caroline and Wilson, James F and Campbell, Harry and Petrovic, Katja and Fornage, Myriam and Chauhan, Ganesh and Yeo, Robin and Boxall, Ruth and Becker, James and Stegle, Oliver and Mather, Karen A and Chouraki, Vincent and Sun, Qi and Rose, Lynda M and Resnick, Susan and Oldmeadow, Christopher and Kirin, Mirna and Wright, Alan F and Jonsdottir, Maria K and Au, Rhoda and Becker, Albert and Amin, Najaf and Nalls, Mike A and Turner, Stephen T and Kardia, Sharon L R and Oostra, Ben and Windham, Gwen and Coker, Laura H and Zhao, Wei and Knopman, David S and Heiss, Gerardo and Griswold, Michael E and Gottesman, Rebecca F and Vitart, Veronique and Hastie, Nicholas D and Zgaga, Lina and Rudan, Igor and Polasek, Ozren and Holliday, Elizabeth G and Schofield, Peter and Choi, Seung Hoan and Tanaka, Toshiko and An, Yang and Perry, Rodney T and Kennedy, Richard E and Sale, Mich{\`e}le M and Wang, Jing and Wadley, Virginia G and Liewald, David C and Ridker, Paul M and Gow, Alan J and Pattie, Alison and Starr, John M and Porteous, David and Liu, Xuan and Thomson, Russell and Armstrong, Nicola J and Eiriksdottir, Gudny and Assareh, Arezoo A and Kochan, Nicole A and Widen, Elisabeth and Palotie, Aarno and Hsieh, Yi-Chen and Eriksson, Johan G and Vogler, Christian and van Swieten, John C and Shulman, Joshua M and Beiser, Alexa and Rotter, Jerome and Schmidt, Carsten O and Hoffmann, Wolfgang and N{\"o}then, Markus M and Ferrucci, Luigi and Attia, John and Uitterlinden, Andr{\'e} G and Amouyel, Philippe and Dartigues, Jean-Fran{\c c}ois and Amieva, H{\'e}l{\`e}ne and R{\"a}ikk{\"o}nen, Katri and Garcia, Melissa and Wolf, Philip A and Hofman, Albert and Longstreth, W T and Psaty, Bruce M and Boerwinkle, Eric and DeJager, Philip L and Sachdev, Perminder S and Schmidt, Reinhold and Breteler, Monique M B and Teumer, Alexander and Lopez, Oscar L and Cichon, Sven and Chasman, Daniel I and Grodstein, Francine and M{\"u}ller-Myhsok, Bertram and Tzourio, Christophe and Papassotiropoulos, Andreas and Bennett, David A and Ikram, M Arfan and Deary, Ian J and van Duijn, Cornelia M and Launer, Lenore and Fitzpatrick, Annette L and Seshadri, Sudha and Mosley, Thomas H} }