Project description:Serum liver enzyme concentrations are the most frequently-used laboratory markers of liver disease, a major cause of mortality. We conduct a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of liver enzymes from UK BioBank and BioBank Japan. We identified 160 previously-unreported independent alanine aminotransferase, 190 aspartate aminotransferase, and 199 alkaline phosphatase genome-wide significant associations, with some affecting multiple different enzymes. Associated variants implicate genes that demonstrate diverse liver cell type expression and promote a range of metabolic and liver diseases. These findings provide insight into the pathophysiology of liver and other metabolic diseases that are associated with serum liver enzyme concentrations.
Project description:Drought is a key constraint on plant productivity and threat to food security. Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench), a global staple food and forage crop, is among the most drought-adapted cereal crops, but its adaptation is not yet well understood. This study aims to better understand the genetic basis of preflowering drought in sorghum and identify loci underlying variation in water use and yield components under drought. A panel of 219 diverse sorghum from West Africa was phenotyped for yield components and water use in an outdoor large-tube lysimeter system under well-watered (WW) versus a preflowering drought water-stressed (WS) treatment. The experimental system was validated based on characteristic drought response in international drought tolerant check genotypes and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) that mapped the major height locus at QHT7.1 and Dw3. GWAS further identified marker trait associations (MTAs) for drought-related traits (plant height, flowering time, forage biomass, grain weight, water use) that each explained 7-70% of phenotypic variance. Most MTAs for drought-related traits correspond to loci not previously reported, but some MTA for forage biomass and grain weight under WS co-localized with staygreen post-flowering drought tolerance loci (Stg3a and Stg4). A globally common allele at S7_50055849 is associated with several yield components under drought, suggesting that it tags a major pleiotropic variant controlling assimilate partitioning to grain versus vegetative biomass. The GWAS revealed oligogenic variants for drought tolerance in sorghum landraces, which could be used as trait predictive markers for improved drought adaptation.
Project description:Liver enzyme elevations, as an indicator of liver function, are widely associated with metabolic diseases. Genome-wide population-based association studies have identified a genetic susceptibility to liver enzyme elevations and their related traits; however, the genetic architecture in childhood remains largely unknown. We performed a genome-wide association study to identify new genetic loci for liver enzyme levels in a Korean childhood cohort (n = 484). We observed three novel loci (rs4949718, rs80311637, and rs596406) that were multiply associated with elevated levels of alanine transaminase and aspartate transaminase. Although there are some limitations, including genetic power, additional replication and functional characterization will support the clarity on the genetic contribution that the ST6GALNAC3, ADAMTS9, and CELF2 genes have in childhood liver function.
Project description:BackgroundAlthough genetic features vary across ethnicities, few genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have reported the genetic determinants of liver enzyme expression. This study was aimed to evaluate the associations of genome-wide single nuclear polymorphisms (SNPs) with the liver enzymes in a Korean population.MethodsWe performed a GWAS to identify genetic loci influencing liver function, as measured by concentrations of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), alanine transaminase (ALT), gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) and total bilirubin (BIL) in in Korean study participants.ResultsA total of 6,488 subjects (4,457 in the discovery and 2,031 in the validation set) were included. The mean subject age was 50.0±10.6 years (male, 53.7%). Among a total of 546,738 SNPs tested, rs651007 and rs579459 located in the ABO gene showed strong associations with ALP (P = 1.63×10-8 and 5.61×10-8, respectively [discovery set]; P = 4.08×10-15 and 9.92×10-16, respectively [validation set]). Additionally, rs5751901 and rs2006092, which are located in the GGT1 gene, showed strong associations with GGT (P = 6.44×10-15 and 1.26×10-15, respectively [discovery set]; P = 4.13×10-10 and 5.15×10-11, respectively [validation set]). Among the 13 SNPs that showed genome-wide significance with total bilirubin levels, rs10929302 and rs6742078 showed the most significant association (P = 3.08×10-64 and 2.05×10-62, respectively [discovery set]; P = 1.33×10-116 and 2.24×10-118, respectively [validation set]). No genome-wide significant associations was found for ALT.ConclusionsWe demonstrated that ABO, GGT1 and UGT1A family were associated with ALP, GGT and BIL, respectively in Korean population. These findings differ from reported results in GWAS in European populations in terms of associated genes and locations, suggesting different genetic mechanisms of liver enzyme regulation according to ethnicity.
Project description:Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of human complex traits or diseases often implicate genetic loci that span hundreds or thousands of genetic variants, many of which have similar statistical significance. While statistical fine-mapping in individuals of European ancestries has made important discoveries, cross-population fine-mapping has the potential to improve power and resolution by capitalizing on the genomic diversity across ancestries. Here we present SuSiEx, an accurate and computationally efficient method for cross-population fine-mapping, which builds on the single-population fine-mapping framework, Sum of Single Effects (SuSiE). SuSiEx integrates data from an arbitrary number of ancestries, explicitly models population-specific allele frequencies and LD patterns, accounts for multiple causal variants in a genomic region, and can be applied to GWAS summary statistics. We comprehensively evaluated SuSiEx using simulations, a range of quantitative traits measured in both UK Biobank and Taiwan Biobank, and schizophrenia GWAS across East Asian and European ancestries. In all evaluations, SuSiEx fine-mapped more association signals, produced smaller credible sets and higher posterior inclusion probability (PIP) for putative causal variants, and captured population-specific causal variants.
Project description:Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of human complex traits or diseases often implicate genetic loci that span hundreds or thousands of genetic variants, many of which have similar statistical significance. While statistical fine-mapping in individuals of European ancestry has made important discoveries, cross-population fine-mapping has the potential to improve power and resolution by capitalizing on the genomic diversity across ancestries. Here we present SuSiEx, an accurate and computationally efficient method for cross-population fine-mapping. SuSiEx integrates data from an arbitrary number of ancestries, explicitly models population-specific allele frequencies and linkage disequilibrium patterns, accounts for multiple causal variants in a genomic region and can be applied to GWAS summary statistics. We comprehensively assessed the performance of SuSiEx using simulations. We further showed that SuSiEx improves the fine-mapping of a range of quantitative traits available in both the UK Biobank and Taiwan Biobank, and improves the fine-mapping of schizophrenia-associated loci by integrating GWAS across East Asian and European ancestries.
Project description:Alzheimer's disease (AD) and cardiovascular traits might share underlying causes. We sought to identify clusters of cardiovascular traits that share genetic factors with AD. We conducted a univariate exome-wide association study and pair-wise pleiotropic analysis focused on AD and 16 cardiovascular traits-6 diseases and 10 cardio-metabolic risk factors-for 188,260 UK biobank participants. Our analysis pinpointed nine genetic markers in the APOE gene region and four loci mapped to the CDK11, OBP2B, TPM1, and SMARCA4 genes, which demonstrated associations with AD at p ≤ 5 × 10-4 and pleiotropic associations at p ≤ 5 × 10-8. Using hierarchical cluster analysis, we grouped the phenotypes from these pleiotropic associations into seven clusters. Lipids were divided into three clusters: low-density lipoprotein and total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides. This split might differentiate the lipid-related mechanisms of AD. The clustering of body mass index (BMI) with weight but not height indicates that weight defines BMI-AD pleiotropy. The remaining two clusters included (i) coronary heart disease and myocardial infarction; and (ii) hypertension, diabetes mellitus (DM), systolic and diastolic blood pressure. We found that all AD protective alleles were associated with larger weight and higher DM risk. Three of the four (75%) clusters of traits, which were significantly correlated with AD, demonstrated antagonistic genetic heterogeneity, characterized by different directions of the genetic associations and trait correlations. Our findings suggest that shared genetic factors between AD and cardiovascular traits mostly affect them in an antagonistic manner.
Project description:Bone mineral density is known to be a heritable, polygenic trait whereas genetic variants contributing to lean mass variation remain largely unknown. We estimated the shared SNP heritability and performed a bivariate GWAS meta-analysis of total-body lean mass (TB-LM) and total-body less head bone mineral density (TBLH-BMD) regions in 10,414 children. The estimated SNP heritability is 43% (95% CI: 34-52%) for TBLH-BMD, and 39% (95% CI: 30-48%) for TB-LM, with a shared genetic component of 43% (95% CI: 29-56%). We identify variants with pleiotropic effects in eight loci, including seven established bone mineral density loci: WNT4, GALNT3, MEPE, CPED1/WNT16, TNFSF11, RIN3, and PPP6R3/LRP5. Variants in the TOM1L2/SREBF1 locus exert opposing effects TB-LM and TBLH-BMD, and have a stronger association with the former trait. We show that SREBF1 is expressed in murine and human osteoblasts, as well as in human muscle tissue. This is the first bivariate GWAS meta-analysis to demonstrate genetic factors with pleiotropic effects on bone mineral density and lean mass.Bone mineral density and lean skeletal mass are heritable traits. Here, Medina-Gomez and colleagues perform bivariate GWAS analyses of total body lean mass and bone mass density in children, and show genetic loci with pleiotropic effects on both traits.
Project description:Concentrations of liver enzymes in plasma are widely used as indicators of liver disease. We carried out a genome-wide association study in 61,089 individuals, identifying 42 loci associated with concentrations of liver enzymes in plasma, of which 32 are new associations (P = 10(-8) to P = 10(-190)). We used functional genomic approaches including metabonomic profiling and gene expression analyses to identify probable candidate genes at these regions. We identified 69 candidate genes, including genes involved in biliary transport (ATP8B1 and ABCB11), glucose, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism (FADS1, FADS2, GCKR, JMJD1C, HNF1A, MLXIPL, PNPLA3, PPP1R3B, SLC2A2 and TRIB1), glycoprotein biosynthesis and cell surface glycobiology (ABO, ASGR1, FUT2, GPLD1 and ST3GAL4), inflammation and immunity (CD276, CDH6, GCKR, HNF1A, HPR, ITGA1, RORA and STAT4) and glutathione metabolism (GSTT1, GSTT2 and GGT), as well as several genes of uncertain or unknown function (including ABHD12, EFHD1, EFNA1, EPHA2, MICAL3 and ZNF827). Our results provide new insight into genetic mechanisms and pathways influencing markers of liver function.