%0 Journal Article %J Circulation %D 2013 %T Resequencing and clinical associations of the 9p21.3 region: a comprehensive investigation in the Framingham heart study. %A Johnson, Andrew D %A Hwang, Shih-Jen %A Voorman, Arend %A Morrison, Alanna %A Peloso, Gina M %A Hsu, Yi-Hsiang %A Thanassoulis, George %A Newton-Cheh, Christopher %A Rogers, Ian S %A Hoffmann, Udo %A Freedman, Jane E %A Fox, Caroline S %A Psaty, Bruce M %A Boerwinkle, Eric %A Cupples, L Adrienne %A O'Donnell, Christopher J %K Calcinosis %K Chromosomes, Human, Pair 9 %K Coronary Artery Disease %K Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p15 %K Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p16 %K DNA Copy Number Variations %K Female %K Follow-Up Studies %K Genetic Predisposition to Disease %K Genotype %K Humans %K Longitudinal Studies %K Male %K Massachusetts %K Middle Aged %K Myocardial Infarction %K Phenotype %K Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide %K Risk Factors %K RNA, Long Noncoding %K Sequence Analysis, DNA %X

BACKGROUND: 9p21.3 is among the most strongly replicated regions for cardiovascular disease. There are few reports of sequencing the associated 9p21.3 interval. We set out to sequence the 9p21.3 region followed by a comprehensive study of genetic associations with clinical and subclinical cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, as well as with copy number variation and gene expression, in the Framingham Heart Study (FHS).

METHODS AND RESULTS: We sequenced 281 individuals (94 with myocardial infarction, 94 with high coronary artery calcium levels, and 93 control subjects free of elevated coronary artery calcium or myocardial infarction), followed by genotyping and association in >7000 additional FHS individuals. We assessed genetic associations with clinical and subclinical cardiovascular disease, risk factor phenotypes, and gene expression levels of the protein-coding genes CDKN2A and CDKN2B and the noncoding gene ANRIL in freshly harvested leukocytes and platelets. Within this large sample, we found strong associations of 9p21.3 variants with increased risk for myocardial infarction, higher coronary artery calcium levels, and larger abdominal aorta diameters and no evidence for association with traditional cardiovascular disease risk factors. No common protein-coding variation, variants in splice donor or acceptor sites, or copy number variation events were observed. By contrast, strong associations were observed between genetic variants and gene expression, particularly for a short isoform of ANRIL and for CDKN2B.

CONCLUSIONS: Our thorough genomic characterization of 9p21.3 suggests common variants likely account for observed disease associations and provides further support for the hypothesis that complex regulatory variation affecting ANRIL and CDKN2B gene expression may contribute to increased risk for clinically apparent and subclinical coronary artery disease and aortic disease.

%B Circulation %V 127 %P 799-810 %8 2013 Feb 19 %G eng %N 7 %1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23315372?dopt=Abstract %R 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.112.111559 %0 Journal Article %J PLoS One %D 2015 %T Population genomic analysis of 962 whole genome sequences of humans reveals natural selection in non-coding regions. %A Yu, Fuli %A Lu, Jian %A Liu, Xiaoming %A Gazave, Elodie %A Chang, Diana %A Raj, Srilakshmi %A Hunter-Zinck, Haley %A Blekhman, Ran %A Arbiza, Leonardo %A Van Hout, Cris %A Morrison, Alanna %A Johnson, Andrew D %A Bis, Joshua %A Cupples, L Adrienne %A Psaty, Bruce M %A Muzny, Donna %A Yu, Jin %A Gibbs, Richard A %A Keinan, Alon %A Clark, Andrew G %A Boerwinkle, Eric %K DNA, Intergenic %K Genetic Loci %K Humans %K Metagenomics %K Open Reading Frames %K Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide %X

Whole genome analysis in large samples from a single population is needed to provide adequate power to assess relative strengths of natural selection across different functional components of the genome. In this study, we analyzed next-generation sequencing data from 962 European Americans, and found that as expected approximately 60% of the top 1% of positive selection signals lie in intergenic regions, 33% in intronic regions, and slightly over 1% in coding regions. Several detailed functional annotation categories in intergenic regions showed statistically significant enrichment in positively selected loci when compared to the null distribution of the genomic span of ENCODE categories. There was a significant enrichment of purifying selection signals detected in enhancers, transcription factor binding sites, microRNAs and target sites, but not on lincRNA or piRNAs, suggesting different evolutionary constraints for these domains. Loci in "repressed or low activity regions" and loci near or overlapping the transcription start site were the most significantly over-represented annotations among the top 1% of signals for positive selection.

%B PLoS One %V 10 %P e0121644 %8 2015 %G eng %N 3 %1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25807536?dopt=Abstract %R 10.1371/journal.pone.0121644 %0 Journal Article %J Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A %D 2016 %T KLB is associated with alcohol drinking, and its gene product β-Klotho is necessary for FGF21 regulation of alcohol preference. %A Schumann, Gunter %A Liu, Chunyu %A O'Reilly, Paul %A Gao, He %A Song, Parkyong %A Xu, Bing %A Ruggeri, Barbara %A Amin, Najaf %A Jia, Tianye %A Preis, Sarah %A Segura Lepe, Marcelo %A Akira, Shizuo %A Barbieri, Caterina %A Baumeister, Sebastian %A Cauchi, Stephane %A Clarke, Toni-Kim %A Enroth, Stefan %A Fischer, Krista %A Hällfors, Jenni %A Harris, Sarah E %A Hieber, Saskia %A Hofer, Edith %A Hottenga, Jouke-Jan %A Johansson, Asa %A Joshi, Peter K %A Kaartinen, Niina %A Laitinen, Jaana %A Lemaitre, Rozenn %A Loukola, Anu %A Luan, Jian'an %A Lyytikäinen, Leo-Pekka %A Mangino, Massimo %A Manichaikul, Ani %A Mbarek, Hamdi %A Milaneschi, Yuri %A Moayyeri, Alireza %A Mukamal, Kenneth %A Nelson, Christopher %A Nettleton, Jennifer %A Partinen, Eemil %A Rawal, Rajesh %A Robino, Antonietta %A Rose, Lynda %A Sala, Cinzia %A Satoh, Takashi %A Schmidt, Reinhold %A Schraut, Katharina %A Scott, Robert %A Smith, Albert Vernon %A Starr, John M %A Teumer, Alexander %A Trompet, Stella %A Uitterlinden, André G %A Venturini, Cristina %A Vergnaud, Anne-Claire %A Verweij, Niek %A Vitart, Veronique %A Vuckovic, Dragana %A Wedenoja, Juho %A Yengo, Loic %A Yu, Bing %A Zhang, Weihua %A Zhao, Jing Hua %A Boomsma, Dorret I %A Chambers, John %A Chasman, Daniel I %A Daniela, Toniolo %A de Geus, Eco %A Deary, Ian %A Eriksson, Johan G %A Esko, Tõnu %A Eulenburg, Volker %A Franco, Oscar H %A Froguel, Philippe %A Gieger, Christian %A Grabe, Hans J %A Gudnason, Vilmundur %A Gyllensten, Ulf %A Harris, Tamara B %A Hartikainen, Anna-Liisa %A Heath, Andrew C %A Hocking, Lynne %A Hofman, Albert %A Huth, Cornelia %A Jarvelin, Marjo-Riitta %A Jukema, J Wouter %A Kaprio, Jaakko %A Kooner, Jaspal S %A Kutalik, Zoltán %A Lahti, Jari %A Langenberg, Claudia %A Lehtimäki, Terho %A Liu, Yongmei %A Madden, Pamela A F %A Martin, Nicholas %A Morrison, Alanna %A Penninx, Brenda %A Pirastu, Nicola %A Psaty, Bruce %A Raitakari, Olli %A Ridker, Paul %A Rose, Richard %A Rotter, Jerome I %A Samani, Nilesh J %A Schmidt, Helena %A Spector, Tim D %A Stott, David %A Strachan, David %A Tzoulaki, Ioanna %A van der Harst, Pim %A van Duijn, Cornelia M %A Marques-Vidal, Pedro %A Vollenweider, Peter %A Wareham, Nicholas J %A Whitfield, John B %A Wilson, James %A Wolffenbuttel, Bruce %A Bakalkin, Georgy %A Evangelou, Evangelos %A Liu, Yun %A Rice, Kenneth M %A Desrivières, Sylvane %A Kliewer, Steven A %A Mangelsdorf, David J %A Müller, Christian P %A Levy, Daniel %A Elliott, Paul %X

Excessive alcohol consumption is a major public health problem worldwide. Although drinking habits are known to be inherited, few genes have been identified that are robustly linked to alcohol drinking. We conducted a genome-wide association metaanalysis and replication study among >105,000 individuals of European ancestry and identified β-Klotho (KLB) as a locus associated with alcohol consumption (rs11940694; P = 9.2 × 10(-12)). β-Klotho is an obligate coreceptor for the hormone FGF21, which is secreted from the liver and implicated in macronutrient preference in humans. We show that brain-specific β-Klotho KO mice have an increased alcohol preference and that FGF21 inhibits alcohol drinking by acting on the brain. These data suggest that a liver-brain endocrine axis may play an important role in the regulation of alcohol drinking behavior and provide a unique pharmacologic target for reducing alcohol consumption.

%B Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A %V 113 %P 14372-14377 %8 2016 Dec 13 %G eng %N 50 %R 10.1073/pnas.1611243113 %0 Journal Article %J J Med Genet %D 2016 %T Meta-analysis of 49 549 individuals imputed with the 1000 Genomes Project reveals an exonic damaging variant in ANGPTL4 determining fasting TG levels. %A van Leeuwen, Elisabeth M %A Sabo, Aniko %A Bis, Joshua C %A Huffman, Jennifer E %A Manichaikul, Ani %A Smith, Albert V %A Feitosa, Mary F %A Demissie, Serkalem %A Joshi, Peter K %A Duan, Qing %A Marten, Jonathan %A van Klinken, Jan B %A Surakka, Ida %A Nolte, Ilja M %A Zhang, Weihua %A Mbarek, Hamdi %A Li-Gao, Ruifang %A Trompet, Stella %A Verweij, Niek %A Evangelou, Evangelos %A Lyytikäinen, Leo-Pekka %A Tayo, Bamidele O %A Deelen, Joris %A van der Most, Peter J %A van der Laan, Sander W %A Arking, Dan E %A Morrison, Alanna %A Dehghan, Abbas %A Franco, Oscar H %A Hofman, Albert %A Rivadeneira, Fernando %A Sijbrands, Eric J %A Uitterlinden, André G %A Mychaleckyj, Josyf C %A Campbell, Archie %A Hocking, Lynne J %A Padmanabhan, Sandosh %A Brody, Jennifer A %A Rice, Kenneth M %A White, Charles C %A Harris, Tamara %A Isaacs, Aaron %A Campbell, Harry %A Lange, Leslie A %A Rudan, Igor %A Kolcic, Ivana %A Navarro, Pau %A Zemunik, Tatijana %A Salomaa, Veikko %A Kooner, Angad S %A Kooner, Jaspal S %A Lehne, Benjamin %A Scott, William R %A Tan, Sian-Tsung %A de Geus, Eco J %A Milaneschi, Yuri %A Penninx, Brenda W J H %A Willemsen, Gonneke %A de Mutsert, Renée %A Ford, Ian %A Gansevoort, Ron T %A Segura-Lepe, Marcelo P %A Raitakari, Olli T %A Viikari, Jorma S %A Nikus, Kjell %A Forrester, Terrence %A McKenzie, Colin A %A de Craen, Anton J M %A de Ruijter, Hester M %A Pasterkamp, Gerard %A Snieder, Harold %A Oldehinkel, Albertine J %A Slagboom, P Eline %A Cooper, Richard S %A Kähönen, Mika %A Lehtimäki, Terho %A Elliott, Paul %A van der Harst, Pim %A Jukema, J Wouter %A Mook-Kanamori, Dennis O %A Boomsma, Dorret I %A Chambers, John C %A Swertz, Morris %A Ripatti, Samuli %A Willems van Dijk, Ko %A Vitart, Veronique %A Polasek, Ozren %A Hayward, Caroline %A Wilson, James G %A Wilson, James F %A Gudnason, Vilmundur %A Rich, Stephen S %A Psaty, Bruce M %A Borecki, Ingrid B %A Boerwinkle, Eric %A Rotter, Jerome I %A Cupples, L Adrienne %A van Duijn, Cornelia M %X

BACKGROUND: So far, more than 170 loci have been associated with circulating lipid levels through genome-wide association studies (GWAS). These associations are largely driven by common variants, their function is often not known, and many are likely to be markers for the causal variants. In this study we aimed to identify more new rare and low-frequency functional variants associated with circulating lipid levels.

METHODS: We used the 1000 Genomes Project as a reference panel for the imputations of GWAS data from ∼60 000 individuals in the discovery stage and ∼90 000 samples in the replication stage.

RESULTS: Our study resulted in the identification of five new associations with circulating lipid levels at four loci. All four loci are within genes that can be linked biologically to lipid metabolism. One of the variants, rs116843064, is a damaging missense variant within the ANGPTL4 gene.

CONCLUSIONS: This study illustrates that GWAS with high-scale imputation may still help us unravel the biological mechanism behind circulating lipid levels.

%B J Med Genet %V 53 %P 441-9 %8 2016 Jul %G eng %N 7 %1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27036123?dopt=Abstract %R 10.1136/jmedgenet-2015-103439 %0 Journal Article %J Genet Epidemiol %D 2018 %T FastSKAT: Sequence kernel association tests for very large sets of markers. %A Lumley, Thomas %A Brody, Jennifer %A Peloso, Gina %A Morrison, Alanna %A Rice, Kenneth %K Algorithms %K Chromosomes, Human %K Genetic Association Studies %K Genetic Markers %K Histones %K Humans %K Sequence Analysis, DNA %K Statistics as Topic %K Time Factors %X

The sequence kernel association test (SKAT) is widely used to test for associations between a phenotype and a set of genetic variants that are usually rare. Evaluating tail probabilities or quantiles of the null distribution for SKAT requires computing the eigenvalues of a matrix related to the genotype covariance between markers. Extracting the full set of eigenvalues of this matrix (an n×n matrix, for n subjects) has computational complexity proportional to n . As SKAT is often used when n104 , this step becomes a major bottleneck in its use in practice. We therefore propose fastSKAT, a new computationally inexpensive but accurate approximations to the tail probabilities, in which the k largest eigenvalues of a weighted genotype covariance matrix or the largest singular values of a weighted genotype matrix are extracted, and a single term based on the Satterthwaite approximation is used for the remaining eigenvalues. While the method is not particularly sensitive to the choice of k, we also describe how to choose its value, and show how fastSKAT can automatically alert users to the rare cases where the choice may affect results. As well as providing faster implementation of SKAT, the new method also enables entirely new applications of SKAT that were not possible before; we give examples grouping variants by topologically associating domains, and comparing chromosome-wide association by class of histone marker.

%B Genet Epidemiol %V 42 %P 516-527 %8 2018 09 %G eng %N 6 %R 10.1002/gepi.22136 %0 Journal Article %J Nat Commun %D 2018 %T Large-scale whole-exome sequencing association studies identify rare functional variants influencing serum urate levels. %A Tin, Adrienne %A Li, Yong %A Brody, Jennifer A %A Nutile, Teresa %A Chu, Audrey Y %A Huffman, Jennifer E %A Yang, Qiong %A Chen, Ming-Huei %A Robinson-Cohen, Cassianne %A Mace, Aurelien %A Liu, Jun %A Demirkan, Ayse %A Sorice, Rossella %A Sedaghat, Sanaz %A Swen, Melody %A Yu, Bing %A Ghasemi, Sahar %A Teumer, Alexanda %A Vollenweider, Peter %A Ciullo, Marina %A Li, Meng %A Uitterlinden, André G %A Kraaij, Robert %A Amin, Najaf %A van Rooij, Jeroen %A Kutalik, Zoltán %A Dehghan, Abbas %A McKnight, Barbara %A van Duijn, Cornelia M %A Morrison, Alanna %A Psaty, Bruce M %A Boerwinkle, Eric %A Fox, Caroline S %A Woodward, Owen M %A Köttgen, Anna %K Exome %K Genetic Predisposition to Disease %K Glucose Transport Proteins, Facilitative %K Humans %K Kidney Function Tests %K Meta-Analysis as Topic %K Organic Anion Transporters %K Organic Cation Transport Proteins %K Protein Structure, Secondary %K Uric Acid %X

Elevated serum urate levels can cause gout, an excruciating disease with suboptimal treatment. Previous GWAS identified common variants with modest effects on serum urate. Here we report large-scale whole-exome sequencing association studies of serum urate and kidney function among ≤19,517 European ancestry and African-American individuals. We identify aggregate associations of low-frequency damaging variants in the urate transporters SLC22A12 (URAT1; p = 1.3 × 10) and SLC2A9 (p = 4.5 × 10). Gout risk in rare SLC22A12 variant carriers is halved (OR = 0.5, p = 4.9 × 10). Selected rare variants in SLC22A12 are validated in transport studies, confirming three as loss-of-function (R325W, R405C, and T467M) and illustrating the therapeutic potential of the new URAT1-blocker lesinurad. In SLC2A9, mapping of rare variants of large effects onto the predicted protein structure reveals new residues that may affect urate binding. These findings provide new insights into the genetic architecture of serum urate, and highlight molecular targets in SLC22A12 and SLC2A9 for lowering serum urate and preventing gout.

%B Nat Commun %V 9 %P 4228 %8 2018 10 12 %G eng %N 1 %R 10.1038/s41467-018-06620-4