Allele-specific NKX2-5 binding underlies multiple genetic associations with human electrocardiographic traits
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ABSTRACT: We conducted a genome-wide analysis to identify regulatory variants affecting the binding of NKX2-5, a core cardiac development transcription factor, and investigated their role in cardiac gene expression and EKG phenotypes. We generated iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) from a pedigree of seven whole-genome sequenced individuals, and profiled them with a variety of functional genomic assays including RNA-Seq, ATAC-Seq, and ChIP-Seq of both histone modification H3K27ac and NKX2-5. After establishing that iPSC-CMs recapitulated cardiomyocyte-specific expression and epigenetic signatures, and that genetic variants affected the variability of molecular phenotypes across the iPSC-CM lines, we identified heterozygous sites that showed allele-specific effects (ASE). We then investigated NKX2-5 ASE variants in detail by examining whether they altered cardiac TF motifs, and whether they were enriched for eQTLs and EKG GWAS-SNPs. Our data reveal that variation affecting the binding of NKX2-5 and other cardiac TFs likely serves as a molecular mechanism underlying control of numerous EKG loci across the genome, and that fine-mapping approaches, combined with molecular phenotype data from iPSC-CMs, can be used to prioritize causal variants in EKG GWAS loci.
Project description:Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) is the most lethal congenital heart disease (CHD). The pathogenesis of HLHS is poorly understood and due to the likely oligogenic complexity of the disease, definitive HLHS-causing genes have not yet been identified. Postulating that impaired cardiomyocyte proliferation as a likely important contributing mechanism to HLHS pathogenesis, and we conducted a genome-wide siRNA screen to identify genes affecting proliferation of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs). This yielded ribosomal protein (RP) genes as the most prominent class of effectors of CM proliferation. In parallel, whole genome sequencing and rare variant filtering of a cohort of 25 HLHS proband-parent trios with poor clinical outcome revealed enrichment of rare variants of RP genes. In addition, in another familial CHD case of HLHS proband we identified a rare, predicted-damaging promoter variant affecting RPS15A that was shared between the proband and a distant relative with CHD. Functional testing with an integrated multi-model system approach reinforced the idea that RP genes are major regulators of cardiac growth and proliferation, thus potentially contributing to hypoplastic phenotype observed in HLHS patients. Cardiac knockdown (KD) of RP genes with promoter or coding variants (RPS15A, RPS17, RPL26L1, RPL39, RPS15) reduced proliferation in generic hPSC-CMs and caused malformed hearts, heart-loss or even lethality in Drosophila. In zebrafish, diminished rps15a function caused reduced CM numbers, heart looping defects, or weakened contractility, while reduced rps17 or rpl39 function caused reduced ventricular size or systolic atrial dysfunction, respectively. Importantly, genetic interactions between RPS15A and core cardiac transcription factors TBX5 in CMs, Drosocross, pannier and tinman in flies, and tbx5 and nkx2-7 (nkx2-5 paralog) in fish, support a specific role for RP genes in heart development. Furthermore, RPS15A KD-induced heart/CM proliferation defects were significantly attenuated by p53 KD in both hPSC-CMs and zebrafish, and by Hippo activation (YAP/yorkie overexpression) in developing fly hearts. Based on these findings, we conclude that RP genes play critical roles in cardiogenesis and constitute an emerging novel class of gene candidates likely involved in HLHS and other CHDs.
Project description:This study recruited 2 patients with type 1 BrS carrying 2 different sodium voltage-gated channel alpha subunit 5 variants as well as 2 healthy control subjects. We generated iPSCs from their skin fibroblasts by using integration-free Sendai virus. We used directed differentiation to create purified populations of iPSC-CMs. BrS iPSC-CMs showed reductions in inward sodium current density and reduced maximal upstroke velocity of action potential compared with healthy control iPSC-CMs. Furthermore, BrS iPSC-CMs demonstrated increased burden of triggered activity, abnormal calcium (Ca2+) transients, and beating interval variation. Correction of the causative variant by genome editing was performed, and resultant iPSC-CMs showed resolution of triggered activity and abnormal Ca2+ transients. Gene expression profiling of iPSC-CMs showed clustering of BrS compared with control subjects. Furthermore, BrS iPSC-CM gene expression correlated with gene expression from BrS human cardiac tissue gene expression.
Project description:Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified blood pressure-related loci, but functional insights into causality and related molecular mechanisms lag behind. We functionally characterize 4608 genetic variants in linkage with blood pressure loci in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and cardiomyocytes (CMs) by massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs). Regulatory variants are in non-conserved loci, enriched in repeats, and alter trait-relevant transcription factor binding sites. Higher-order genome organization indicates that loci harboring regulatory variants converge in spatial hubs to control specific signaling pathways required for proper cardiovascular function. Modelling different variant allele frequencies by CRISPR prime editing led to expression changes of KCNK9, SFXN2, and PCGF6. We provide mechanistic insights into how regulatory variants converge their effects on blood pressure genes (i.e. ULK4, MAP4, CFDP1, PDE5A, 10q24.32), and cardiovascular pathways. Our findings support advances in molecular precision medicine to define functionally relevant variants and the genetic architecture of blood pressure genes.
Project description:Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified blood pressure-related loci, but functional insights into causality and related molecular mechanisms lag behind. We functionally characterize 4608 genetic variants in linkage with blood pressure loci in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and cardiomyocytes (CMs) by massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs). Regulatory variants are in non-conserved loci, enriched in repeats, and alter trait-relevant transcription factor binding sites. Higher-order genome organization indicates that loci harboring regulatory variants converge in spatial hubs to control specific signaling pathways required for proper cardiovascular function. Modelling different variant allele frequencies by CRISPR prime editing led to expression changes of KCNK9, SFXN2, and PCGF6. We provide mechanistic insights into how regulatory variants converge their effects on blood pressure genes (i.e. ULK4, MAP4, CFDP1, PDE5A, 10q24.32), and cardiovascular pathways. Our findings support advances in molecular precision medicine to define functionally relevant variants and the genetic architecture of blood pressure genes.
Project description:Human cardiomyocytes can be generated from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in vitro by a variety of methods, including co-culture with visceral endoderm-like cell lines and growth factor directed differentiation as monolayers or three-dimensional embryonic bodies. To enable the identification, purification and characterisation of human embryonic stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (CMs) and cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs), we introduced sequences encoding GFP into the NKX2-5 locus by homologous recombination. We found that NKX2-5GFP hESCs facilitate quantification of cardiac differentiation, purification of hESC-derived committed cardiac progenitor cells and cardiomyocytes and the standardization of differentiation protocols.
Project description:Cardiomyocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC-CMs) or directly reprogrammed from non-myocytes (induced cardiomyocytes, iCMs) are promising sources for heart regeneration or disease modeling. However, the similarities and differences between iPSC-CM and iCM are still unknown. Here we performed transcriptome analyses of beating iPSC-CMs and iCMs generated from cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) of the same origin. Although both iPSC-CMs and iCMs establish CM-like molecular features globally, iPSC-CMs exhibit a relatively hyperdynamic epigenetic status while iCMs exhibit maturation status that more resemble adult CMs. Based on gene expression of metabolic enzymes, iPSC-CMs primarily employ glycolysis while iCMs utilize fatty acid oxidation as the main pathway. Importantly, iPSC-CMs and iCMs exhibit different cell cycle status, alteration of which influenced their maturation. Therefore, our study provides a foundation for understanding the pros and cons of different reprogramming approaches.
Project description:Background: We had shown that cardiomyocytes (CMs) were more efficiently differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) when the hiPSCs were reprogrammed from cardiac fibroblasts rather than dermal fibroblasts or blood mononuclear cells. Here, we continued to investigate the relationship between somatic-cell lineage and hiPSC-CM production by comparing the yield and functional properties of CMs differentiated from iPSCs reprogrammed from human atrial or ventricular cardiac fibroblasts (AiPSC or ViPSC, respectively). Methods: Atrial and ventricular heart tissues were obtained from the same patient, reprogrammed into AiPSCs or ViPSCs, and then differentiated into CMs (AiPSC-CMs or ViPSC-CMs, respectively) via established protocols. Results: The time-course of expression for pluripotency genes (OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2), the early mesodermal marker Brachyury, the cardiac mesodermal markers MESP1 and Gata4, and the cardiovascular progenitor-cell transcription factor NKX2.5 were broadly similar in AiPSC-CMs and ViPSC-CMs during the differentiation protocol. Flow-cytometry analyses of cardiac troponin T expression also indicated that purity of the two differentiated hiPSC-CM populations (AiPSC-CMs: 88.23±4.69%, ViPSC-CMs: 90.25±4.99%) was equivalent. While the field-potential durations were significantly longer in ViPSC-CMs than in AiPSC-CMs, measurements of action potential duration, beat period, spike amplitude, conduction velocity, and peak calcium-transient amplitude did not differ significantly between the two hiPSC-CM populations. Yet, our cardiac-origin iPSC-CM showed higher ADP and conduction velocity than previously reported iPSC-CM derived from non-cardiac tissues. Transcriptomic data comparing iPSC and iPSC-CMs showed similar gene expression profiles between AiPSC-CMs and ViPSC-CMs with significant differences when compared to iPSC-CM derived from other tissues. This analysis also pointed to several genes involved in electrophysiology processes to be responsible for the physiological differences observed between cardiac and non-cardiac-derived cardiomyocytes. ¬ Conclusions: AiPSC and ViPSC were differentiated into CMs with equal efficiency. Detected differences in electrophysiological properties, calcium handling activity, and transcription profiles between cardiac and non-cardiac derived cardiomyocytes demonstrated that 1) tissue of origin matters to generate a better-featured iPSC-CMs, 2) the sublocation within the cardiac tissue has marginal effects on the differentiation process.
Project description:Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified multiple lung cancer risk loci including those that are distinct in the major histological types. However, most of these loci have not been functionally characterized. Here we employed massively parallel reporter assays (MPRA) to assess allelic transcriptional activity of risk-associated variants en masse. We tested 2,245 variants in 42 loci from 3 recent GWASs of East Asian and European populations in the context of lung adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma cells while incorporating exposure to a tobacco-smoke carcinogen, benzo[a]pyrene. At FDR < 0.01, we identified 844 MPRA-significant variants with allelic transcriptional activity across 88% of lung cancer loci. Further variant scoring using lung-specific epigenomic annotation demonstrated that 63% of the loci harbored multiple equally functional variants in linkage disequilibrium. Cell-type-specific variants were observed in 72% of the loci, a subset of which aligned with histology-specific association in the GWAS. Distinct subsets of transcription factors were predicted to bind to cell-type-specific variants and those affecting multiple GWAS loci in trans. Linking MPRA-significant variants to target genes based on four different approaches identified candidate susceptibility genes including essential genes for lung cancer cell growth. CRISPR-interference of a high-scoring MPRA-significant variant validated multiple variant-gene connections from different datasets, including RTEL1, SOX18, and ARFRP1. Our data provide a comprehensive catalog of functional characterization of lung cancer GWAS loci and the molecular basis of heterogeneity and polygenicity of lung cancer susceptibility.
Project description:N-terminal-acetyltransferases including NAA10 catalyze N-terminal acetylation (Nt-acetylation), an evolutionarily conserved co- and post-translational modification. However, little is known about the role of Nt-acetylation in cardiac homeostasis. To gain insight into cardiac-dependent NAA10 function, we studied a novel NAA10 variant (p.R4S) segregating with QT-prolongation, cardiomyopathy and developmental delay in a large kindred. Here we show that the NAA10R4S variant reduced enzymatic activity, decreased expression levels of NAA10/NAA15 proteins, and destabilized the enzymatic complex NatA. In NAA10R4S/Y-iPSC-CMs, dysregulation of the late sodium and slow rectifying potassium currents caused severe repolarization abnormalities, consistent with clinical QT prolongation. Engineered heart tissues generated from NAA10R4S/Y-iPSC-CMs had significantly decreased contractile force and sarcomeric disorganization, consistent with the pedigree’s cardiomyopathic phenotype. Proteomic studies revealed dysregulation of metabolic pathways and cardiac structural proteins. We identified small molecule and genetic therapies that normalized the phenotype of NAA10R4S/Y-iPSC-CMs. Our study defines novel roles of Nt-acetylation in cardiac regulation and delineates mechanisms underlying QT prolongation, arrhythmia, and cardiomyopathy caused by NAA10 dysfunction.
Project description:GWAS studies have revealed thousands of variants strongly associated with AMD, yet connecting these variants to their cognate genes has not been explored. In this study we fine-mapped AMD risk loci and examined long-range cis chromatin interactions at essential genes of RPE function and disease-associated variants in iPSC-induced retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) and primary RPE.