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Restless Legs Syndrome-associated variant in MEIS1 confers altered gene expression in embryonic ganglionic eminences

ABSTRACT: Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) identified the MEIS1 locus for Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS), but causal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and the functional relevance have remained to be elucidated. The MEIS1 locus contains an exceptionally large number of highly conserved non-coding regions (HCNRs), which potentially function as cis-regulatory modules. We analyzed the HCNRs in the RLS-associated linkage disequilibrium (LD) block for allele-dependent enhancer activity in both zebrafish and mouse, comparing the protective and risk alleles of RLS-associated common variants. We found one enhancer, harboring the lead SNP rs12469063, which showed an allele-dependent reduction of reporter gene expression exclusively in the embryonic ganglionic eminences at developmental stage E12.5. Notably, the reporter activity overlapped with the endogenous telencephalic Meis1 expression domain, which co-localized with transcripts of all four validated RLS loci. Thus, the developing telencephalon represents the first neuroanatomic region implicated for RLS based on GWAS findings.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE44592 | GEO | 2014/01/29

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA190599

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:A major goal of genetics research is to elucidate mechanisms explaining how genetic variation contributes to phenotypic variation. The genetic variants identified in genome-wide association studies (GWASs) generally explain only a small proportion of heritability of phenotypic traits, the so-called missing heritability problem. Recent evidence suggests that additional common variants beyond lead GWAS variants contribute to phenotypic variation; however, their mechanistic underpinnings generally remain unexplored. Herein, we undertake a study of haplotype-specific mechanisms of gene regulation at 8p23.1 in the human genome, a region associated with a number of complex diseases. The FAM167A-BLK locus in this region has been consistently found in the genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in all major ancestries. Our haplotype-specific chromatin interaction (Hi-C) experiments, allele-specific enhancer activity measurements, genetic analyses, and epigenome editing experiments revealed that: (1) haplotype-specific long-range chromatin interactions are prevalent in 8p23.1; (2) BLK promoter and cis-regulatory elements cooperatively interact with haplotype-specificity; (3) genetic variants at distal regulatory elements are allele-specific modifiers of the promoter variants at FAM167A-BLK; (4) the BLK promoter interacts with and, as an enhancer-like promoter, regulates FAM167A expression and (5) local allele-specific enhancer activities are influenced by global haplotype structure due to chromatin looping. Although SLE causal variants at the FAM167A-BLK locus are thought to reside in the BLK promoter region, our results reveal that genetic variants at distal regulatory elements modulate promoter activity, changing BLK and FAM167A gene expression and disease risk. Our results suggest that global haplotype-specific 3-dimensional chromatin looping architecture has a strong influence on local allelic BLK and FAM167A gene expression, providing mechanistic details for how regional variants controlling the BLK promoter may influence disease risk.

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Restless Legs Syndrome-associated variant in MEIS1 confers altered gene expression in embryonic ganglionic eminences

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