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Epigentic profiling of murine proximal and distal femoral growth plates at E15.5 of mouse gestation

ABSTRACT: GWAS have identified hundreds of loci associated with height.However, determining causal mechanisms is challenging, especially since height-relevant tissues such as the growth plate are difficult to study. To discover mechanisms by which height GWAS variants function, we performed epigenetic profiling of murine femoral growth plates. The profiled open chromatin regions recapitulate known chondrocyte and skeletal biology and are enriched at height GWAS loci, particularly near differentially expressed growth plate genes. These regions are also enriched in binding motifs of transcription factors with known roles in chondrocyte biology. At specific loci, our analyses identified compelling mechanisms for GWAS variants. For example, at the CHYS1 locus, we identified a potentially causal variant overlapping an open chromatin region and predicted to alter binding of HOXD13, important for skeletal development. Thus, integrating biologically relevant epigenetic information (here, from mouse growth plate) with genetic association results can identify biological mechanisms important for human growth.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE100585 | GEO | 2017/12/05

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA392227

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Human adult height reflects the outcome of childhood skeletal growth. Growth plate (epiphyseal) chondrocytes are key determinants of height. As epiphyseal chondrocytes mature and proliferate, they pass through three developmental stages, which are organized into three distinct layers in the growth plate: (i) resting (round), (ii) proliferative (flat), and (iii) hypertrophic. Recent genomewide association studies (GWASs) of human height identified numerous associated loci, which are enriched for genes expressed in growth plate chondrocytes. However, it remains unclear which specific genes expressed in which layers of the growth plate regulate skeletal growth and human height. To connect the genetics of height and growth plate biology, we analyzed GWAS data through the lens of gene expression in the three dissected layers of murine newborn tibial growth plate. For each gene, we derived a specificity score for each growth plate layer and regressed these scores against gene-level p values from recent height GWAS data. We found that specificity for expression in the round cell layer, which contains chondrocytes early in maturation, is significantly associated with height GWAS p values (p = 8.5 × 10−9); this association remains after conditioning on specificity for the other cell layers. The association also remains after conditioning on membership in an “Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) gene set” (genes known to cause monogenic skeletal growth disorders, p < 9.7 × 10−6). We replicated the association in RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) data from maturing chondrocytes sampled at early and late time points during differentiation in vitro: we found that expression early in differentiation is significantly associated with p values from height GWASs (p = 6.1 × 10−10) and that this association remains after conditioning on expression at 10 days in culture and on the OMIM gene set (p < 0.006). These findings newly implicate genes highlighted by GWASs of height and specifically expressed in the round cell layer as being potentially important regulators of skeletal biology. © 2021 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR).

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Epigentic profiling of murine proximal and distal femoral growth plates at E15.5 of mouse gestation

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