Project description:<p>The ICBP consortium is an international effort to investigate blood-pressure genetics. The consortium was formed by two parent consortia, the CHARGE-BP consortium (Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology - blood pressure) and the GBPGEN consortium (Global Blood Pressure Genetics Consortium).</p> <p>In 2011 we performed genome-wide association analyses based on genome-wide SNPs imputed to HapMap for systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP) and mean arterial pressure and pulse pressure (MAP and PP).</p> <p>In 2016 we performed an analysis based on the Cardio-MetaboChip for SBP and DBP.</p> <p>All these datasets are available here, however, full association statistics including effect size directions, only under controlled access by dbGaP.</p>
Project description:A robust system using disease relevant cells to systematically evaluate the role in diabetes for loci identified through genome wide association studies (GWAS) is urgently needed. Toward this goal, we created isogenic mutant human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines in GWAS-identified candidate diabetes genes including CDKAL1, KCNQ1 and KCNJ11, and used directed differentiation to evaluate the function of derivative human beta-like cells. The mutations did not affect the generation of insulin+ cells, but impaired insulin secretion both in vitro and in vivo, coinciding with defective glucose homeostasis. CDKAL1-/- insulin+ cells also displayed hypersensitivity to lipotoxicity. A high-content chemical screen identified a candidate drug that rescued CDKAL1-/--specific defects by inhibiting the AP1 (FOS/JUN) pathway. These studies establish a platform using isogenic hESCs to evaluate the function of GWAS-identified loci, and identify a drug candidate that rescues gene-specific defects, paving the way to precision therapy of metabolic diseases.A robust system using disease relevant cells to systematically evaluate the role in diabetes for loci identified through genome wide association studies (GWAS) is urgently needed. Toward this goal, we created isogenic mutant human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines in GWAS-identified candidate diabetes genes including CDKAL1, KCNQ1 and KCNJ11, and used directed differentiation to evaluate the function of derivative human beta-like cells. The mutations did not affect the generation of insulin+ cells, but impaired insulin secretion both in vitro and in vivo, coinciding with defective glucose homeostasis. CDKAL1-/- insulin+ cells also displayed hypersensitivity to lipotoxicity. A high-content chemical screen identified a candidate drug that rescued CDKAL1-/--specific defects by inhibiting the AP1 (FOS/JUN) pathway. These studies establish a platform using isogenic hESCs to evaluate the function of GWAS-identified loci, and identify a drug candidate that rescues gene-specific defects, paving the way to precision therapy of metabolic diseases.
Project description:We carried out a genome-wide association and replication study for blood pressure in a two-stage approach (max N = 289,038) with a discovery stage sample of 130,777 East Asian individuals, identifying 19 new genetic loci. We found a significant genetic heterogeneity between East Asian and European-descent populations at several blood pressure loci, conforming to “a common ancestry-specific variant association model”. At 6 unique loci, distinct non-rare (or common) ancestry-specific variants co-localized within the same linkage disequilibrium block despite the significantly discordant direction of effects for the proxy shared variants between the ethnic groups. The genome-wide transethnic correlation of causal-variant effect sizes is 0.898 and 0.851 for systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively. Some of the ancestry-specific association signals were also influenced by a selective sweep. Our results provide new evidence for the role of common ancestry-specific variants and natural selection in the occurrence of ethnic differences in complex traits such as blood pressure.