Dataset Information

Genome-wide association study reveals a novel locus for asthma with severe exacerbations in diverse populations.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Severe asthma exacerbations are a major cause of asthma morbidity and increased healthcare costs. Several studies have shown racial and ethnic differences in asthma exacerbation rates. We aimed to identify genetic variants associated with severe exacerbations in two high-risk populations for asthma.

Methods

A genome-wide association study of asthma in children and youth with severe exacerbations was performed in 1283 exacerbators and 2027 controls without asthma of Latino ancestry. Independent suggestive variants (P ? 5 × 10^-6 ) were selected for replication in 448 African Americans exacerbators and 595 controls. Case-only analyses were performed comparing the exacerbators with additional 898 Latinos and 524 African Americans asthma patients without exacerbations, while adjusting by treatment category as a proxy of asthma severity. We analyzed the functionality of associated variants with in silico methods and by correlating genotypes with methylation levels in whole blood in a subset of 473 Latinos.

Results

We identified two genome-wide significant associations for susceptibility to asthma with severe exacerbations, including a novel locus located at chromosome 2p21 (rs4952375, odds ratio = 1.39, P = 3.8 × 10^-8 ), which was also associated with asthma exacerbations in a case-only analysis (odds ratio = 1.25, P = 1.95 × 10^-3 ). This polymorphism is an expression quantitative trait locus of the long intergenic non-protein coding RNA 1913 (LINC01913) in lung tissues (P = 1.3 × 10^-7 ) and influences methylation levels of the protein kinase domain-containing cytoplasmic (PKDCC) gene in whole-blood cells (P = 9.8 × 10^-5 ).

Conclusion

We identified a novel susceptibility locus for severe asthma exacerbations in Hispanic/Latino and African American youths with functional effects in gene expression and methylation status of neighboring genes.

SUBMITTER: Herrera-Luis E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7886969 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Genome-wide association study reveals a novel locus for asthma with severe exacerbations in diverse populations.

Herrera-Luis Esther E Espuela-Ortiz Antonio A Lorenzo-Diaz Fabian F Keys Kevin L KL Mak Angel C Y ACY Eng Celeste C Huntsman Scott S Villar Jesús J Rodriguez-Santana Jose R JR Burchard Esteban G EG Pino-Yanes Maria M

Pediatric allergy and immunology : official publication of the European Society of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology 20200914 1

<h4>Background</h4>Severe asthma exacerbations are a major cause of asthma morbidity and increased healthcare costs. Several studies have shown racial and ethnic differences in asthma exacerbation rates. We aimed to identify genetic variants associated with severe exacerbations in two high-risk populations for asthma.<h4>Methods</h4>A genome-wide association study of asthma in children and youth with severe exacerbations was performed in 1283 exacerbators and 2027 controls without asthma of Lati ...[more]

PMID: 32841424

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Project description:BackgroundDental caries is one of the most common chronic diseases and is influenced by a complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors. Most previous genetic studies of caries have focused on identifying genes that contribute to dental caries in specific ethnic groups, usually of European descent.MethodsThe aim of this study is to conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify associations affecting susceptibility to caries in a large multiethnic population from Argentina, the Philippines, Guatemala, Hungary, and the USA, originally recruited for studies of orofacial clefts (POFC, N = 3686). Ages of the participants ranged from 2 to 12 years for analysis of the primary dentition, and 18-60 years for analysis of the permanent dentition. For each participant, dental caries was assessed by counts of decayed and filled teeth (dft/DFT) and genetic variants (single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs) were genotyped or imputed across the entire genome. Caries was analyzed separately for the primary and permanent dentitions, with age, gender, and presence/absence of any type of OFC treated as covariates. Efficient Mixed-Model Association eXpedited (EMMAX) was used to test genetic association, while simultaneously accounting for relatedness and stratification.ResultsWe identified several suggestive loci (5 × 10-8 < P < 5 × 10-6) within or near genes with plausible biological roles for dental caries, including a cluster of taste receptor genes (TAS2R38, TAS2R3, TAS2R4, TASR25) on chromosome 7 for the permanent dentition analysis, and DLX3 and DLX4 on chromosome 17 for the primary dentition analysis. Genome-wide significant results were seen with SNPs in the primary dentition only; however, none of the identified genes near these variants have known roles in cariogenesis.ConclusionThe results of this study warrant further investigation and may lead to a better understanding of cariogenesis in diverse populations, and help to improve dental caries prediction, prevention, and/or treatment in future.

Project description:BackgroundThe standard approach to determine unique or shared genetic factors across populations is to identify risk alleles in one population and investigate replication in others. However, since populations differ in DNA sequence information, allele frequencies, effect sizes, and linkage disequilibrium patterns, SNP association using a uniform stringent threshold on p values may not be reproducible across populations. Here, we developed rank-based methods to investigate shared or population-specific loci and pathways for childhood asthma across individuals of diverse ancestry. We performed genome-wide association studies on 859,790 SNPs genotyped in 527 affected offspring trios of European, African, and Hispanic ancestry using publically available asthma database in the Genotypes and Phenotypes database.ResultsRank-based analyses showed that there are shared genetic factors for asthma across populations, more at the gene and pathway levels than at the SNP level. Although the top 1,000 SNPs were not shared, 11 genes (RYR2, PDE4D, CSMD1, CDH13, ROBO2, RBFOX1, PTPRD, NPAS3, PDE1C, SEMA5A, and CTNNA2) mapped by these SNPs were shared across populations. Ryanodine receptor 2 (RYR2, a statin response-related gene) showed the strongest association in European (p value=2.55×10(-7)) and was replicated in African (2.57×10(-4)) and Hispanic (1.18 × 10(-3)) Americans. Imputation analyses based on the 1000 Genomes Project uncovered additional RYR2 variants associated with asthma. Network and functional ontology analyses revealed that RYR2 is an integral part of dermatological or allergic disorder biological networks, specifically in the functional classes involving inflammatory, eosinophilic, and respiratory diseases.ConclusionOur rank-based genome-wide analysis revealed for the first time an association of RYR2 variants with asthma and replicated previously discovered PDE4D asthma gene across human populations. The replication of top-ranked asthma genes across populations suggests that such loci are less likely to be false positives and could indicate true associations. Variants that are associated with asthma across populations could be used to identify individuals who are at high risk for asthma regardless of genetic ancestry.

Dataset Information

Genome-wide association study reveals a novel locus for asthma with severe exacerbations in diverse populations.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Genome-wide association study reveals a novel locus for asthma with severe exacerbations in diverse populations.

Similar Datasets

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