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Massively parallel identification of cis-regulatory variants in yeast promoters - Experimental measurements

ABSTRACT: Sequence variation in regulatory DNA alters gene expression and shapes genetically complex traits. However, the identification of individual, causal regulatory variants is challenging. Here, we used a massively parallel reporter assay to measure the cis-regulatory consequences of 5,832 natural DNA variants in the promoters of 2,503 genes in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We identified 451 causal variants, which underlie genetic loci known to affect gene expression. Several promoters harbored multiple causal variants. In five promoters, pairs of variants showed non-additive, epistatic interactions. Causal variants were enriched at conserved nucleotides, tended to have low derived allele frequency, and were depleted from promoters of essential genes, consistent with the action of negative selection. Causal variants were enriched for alterations in transcription factor binding sites. Models integrating these features provided modest, but statistically significant, ability to predict causal variants. This work revealed a complex molecular basis for cis-acting regulatory variation.

ORGANISM(S): Saccharomyces cerevisiae

PROVIDER: GSE155943 | GEO | 2020/08/31

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Background: The identification of causal variants responsible for disease associations from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) facilitates functional understanding of the disease mechanisms implicated by GWAS. One of the earliest GWAS associations to COPD spans an intragenic region within FAM13A, but the causal variants at this loci have not yet been identified. Massively parallel reporter assays (MPRA) can be used to prioritize functional regulatory variants in a high-throughput manner. Methods: We used an integrated approach using fine-mapping in over 10,000 subjects from COPD GWAS studies, two MPRA experiments, traditional reporter assays, chromatin conformation capture, and CRISPR-based gene editing to characterize COPD-associated regulatory variants in FAM13A in human bronchial epithelial cell lines. Results: Conditional genetic association and fine mapping analyses identified two independent COPD association signals in FAM13A. MPRA identified 45 common functional regulatory variants, and six COPD-associated putative functional variants were prioritized for further functional investigation. Three variants demonstrated significant activity in traditional reporter assays, and one variant, rs2013701, was selected for further testing in the endogenous genomic context based on a direction of effect consistent with postulated mechanisms of FAM13A-mediated COPD susceptibility. CRISPR-based genome editing for this variant confirmed allele-specific effects on FAM13A expression and altered rates of cellular proliferation, providing multiple levels of functional characterization for this COPD-associated variant. Conclusions: Comprehensive screening for regulatory variants near FAM13A identified the presence of extensive functional regulatory variation within a 250kb window of FAM13A in HBECs. Focused functional evaluation of the COPD-associated functional variants in LD with the two independent association signals in this region prioritized the common variant rs2013701, for which multiple parallel lines of functional evidence confirm allelic effects on FAM13A regulation.

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Massively parallel identification of cis-regulatory variants in yeast promoters - Experimental measurements

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