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Trang KB, Pahl MC, Pippin JA, Su C, Littleton SH, Sharma P, Kulkarni NN, Ghanem LR, Terry NA, O’Brien JM, Wagley Y, Hankenson KD, Jermusyk A, Hoskins JW, Amundadottir LT, Xu M, Brown KM, Anderson SA, Yang W, Titchenell PM, Seale P, Cook L, Levings MK, Zemel BS, Chesi A, Wells AD, Grant SF. 3D genomic features across >50 diverse cell types reveal insights into the genomic architecture of childhood obesity. MEDRXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR HEALTH SCIENCES 2024:2023.08.30.23294092. [PMID: 37693606 PMCID: PMC10491377 DOI: 10.1101/2023.08.30.23294092] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/12/2023]
Abstract
The prevalence of childhood obesity is increasing worldwide, along with the associated common comorbidities of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in later life. Motivated by evidence for a strong genetic component, our prior genome-wide association study (GWAS) efforts for childhood obesity revealed 19 independent signals for the trait; however, the mechanism of action of these loci remains to be elucidated. To molecularly characterize these childhood obesity loci we sought to determine the underlying causal variants and the corresponding effector genes within diverse cellular contexts. Integrating childhood obesity GWAS summary statistics with our existing 3D genomic datasets for 57 human cell types, consisting of high-resolution promoter-focused Capture-C/Hi-C, ATAC-seq, and RNA-seq, we applied stratified LD score regression and calculated the proportion of genome-wide SNP heritability attributable to cell type-specific features, revealing pancreatic alpha cell enrichment as the most statistically significant. Subsequent chromatin contact-based fine-mapping was carried out for genome-wide significant childhood obesity loci and their linkage disequilibrium proxies to implicate effector genes, yielded the most abundant number of candidate variants and target genes at the BDNF, ADCY3, TMEM18 and FTO loci in skeletal muscle myotubes and the pancreatic beta-cell line, EndoC-BH1. One novel implicated effector gene, ALKAL2 - an inflammation-responsive gene in nerve nociceptors - was observed at the key TMEM18 locus across multiple immune cell types. Interestingly, this observation was also supported through colocalization analysis using expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) derived from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) dataset, supporting an inflammatory and neurologic component to the pathogenesis of childhood obesity. Our comprehensive appraisal of 3D genomic datasets generated in a myriad of different cell types provides genomic insights into pediatric obesity pathogenesis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Khanh B. Trang
- Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Division of Human Genetics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Matthew C. Pahl
- Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Division of Human Genetics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - James A. Pippin
- Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Division of Human Genetics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Chun Su
- Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Division of Human Genetics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Sheridan H. Littleton
- Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Division of Human Genetics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Group, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Prabhat Sharma
- Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Pathology, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Nikhil N. Kulkarni
- Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Pathology, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Louis R. Ghanem
- Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Natalie A. Terry
- Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Joan M. O’Brien
- Scheie Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, PA, USA
- Penn Medicine Center for Ophthalmic Genetics in Complex Disease
| | - Yadav Wagley
- Department of Orthopedic Surgery University of Michigan Medical School Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Kurt D. Hankenson
- Department of Orthopedic Surgery University of Michigan Medical School Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Ashley Jermusyk
- Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Jason W. Hoskins
- Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Laufey T. Amundadottir
- Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Mai Xu
- Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Kevin M Brown
- Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Stewart A. Anderson
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Wenli Yang
- Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Paul M. Titchenell
- Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Physiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Patrick Seale
- Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Laura Cook
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Department of Critical Care, Melbourne Medical School, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Megan K. Levings
- Department of Surgery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- School of Biomedical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Babette S. Zemel
- Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Alessandra Chesi
- Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Pathology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Andrew D. Wells
- Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Pathology, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Pathology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Institute for Immunology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Struan F.A. Grant
- Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Division of Human Genetics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Division Endocrinology and Diabetes, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Penn Neurodegeneration Genomics Center, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
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Ajayi T, Thomas A, Nikolic M, Henderson L, Zaheri A, Dwyer DS. Evolutionary conservation of putative suicidality-related risk genes that produce diminished motivation corrected by clozapine, lithium and antidepressants. Front Psychiatry 2024; 15:1341735. [PMID: 38362034 PMCID: PMC10867104 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1341735] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/20/2023] [Accepted: 01/17/2024] [Indexed: 02/17/2024] Open
Abstract
Background Genome wide association studies (GWAS) and candidate gene analyses have identified genetic variants and genes that may increase the risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs). Important unresolved issues surround these tentative risk variants such as the characteristics of the associated genes and how they might elicit STBs. Methods Putative suicidality-related risk genes (PSRGs) were identified by comprehensive literature search and were characterized with respect to evolutionary conservation, participation in gene interaction networks and associated phenotypes. Evolutionary conservation was established with database searches and BLASTP queries, whereas gene-gene interactions were ascertained with GeneMANIA. We then examined whether mutations in risk-gene counterparts in C. elegans produced a diminished motivation phenotype previously connected to suicide risk factors. Results and conclusions From the analysis, 105 risk-gene candidates were identified and found to be: 1) highly conserved during evolution, 2) enriched for essential genes, 3) involved in significant gene-gene interactions, and 4) associated with psychiatric disorders, metabolic disturbances and asthma/allergy. Evaluation of 17 mutant strains with loss-of-function/deletion mutations in PSRG orthologs revealed that 11 mutants showed significant evidence of diminished motivation that manifested as immobility in a foraging assay. Immobility was corrected in some or all of the mutants with clozapine, lithium and tricyclic antidepressant drugs. In addition, 5-HT2 receptor and muscarinic receptor antagonists restored goal-directed behavior in most or all of the mutants. These studies increase confidence in the validity of the PSRGs and provide initial clues about possible mechanisms that mediate STBs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Titilade Ajayi
- Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Neuroscience, LSU Health Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, United States
| | - Alicia Thomas
- Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Neuroscience, LSU Health Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, United States
| | - Marko Nikolic
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, LSU Health Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, United States
| | - Lauryn Henderson
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, LSU Health Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, United States
| | - Alexa Zaheri
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, LSU Health Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, United States
| | - Donard S. Dwyer
- Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Neuroscience, LSU Health Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, United States
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, LSU Health Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, United States
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Falker-Gieske C, Mott A, Preuß S, Franzenburg S, Bessei W, Bennewitz J, Tetens J. Analysis of the brain transcriptome in lines of laying hens divergently selected for feather pecking. BMC Genomics 2020; 21:595. [PMID: 32854615 PMCID: PMC7457272 DOI: 10.1186/s12864-020-07002-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2020] [Accepted: 08/18/2020] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Feather pecking (FP) in laying hens reduces animal welfare and leads to economic losses for the layer industry. FP is considered a heritable condition that is influenced by dysregulation of neurotransmitter homeostasis, the gut microbiome, and the immune system. To identify genes and biological pathways responsible for FP behavior we compared the brain transcriptomes of 48 hens divergently selected for FP. In addition, we tested if high feather peckers (HFP) and low feather peckers (LFP) respond differently to light since light has been shown to trigger FP behavior. Results Of approximately 48 million reads/sample an average of 98.4% were mapped to the chicken genome (GRCg6a). We found 13,070 expressed genes in the analyzed brains of which 423 showed differential expression between HFP and LFP. Genes of uncertain function and non-coding RNAs were overrepresented among those transcripts. Functional analyses revealed the involvement of cholinergic signaling, postsynaptic activity, membrane channels, and the immune system. After the light stimulus, 28 genes were found to be differentially expressed. These included an interaction cluster of core components of the circadian clock. However, differences in the response to light between HFP and LFP were not detectable. Conclusions Genes involved in cholinergic signaling, channel activity, synaptic transmission, and immune response were found to be involved in FP behavior. We propose a model in which the gut microbiota modulates the immune system, which in turn affects cholinergic signaling. This might have an influence on monoamine signaling with possible involvement of GABA or glutamate signaling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Clemens Falker-Gieske
- Department of Animal Sciences, Georg-August-University, Burckhardtweg 2, 37077, Göttingen, Germany.
| | - Andrea Mott
- Department of Animal Sciences, Georg-August-University, Burckhardtweg 2, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Siegfried Preuß
- Institute of Animal Science, University of Hohenheim, Garbenstr. 17, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Sören Franzenburg
- Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 12, 24105, Kiel, Germany
| | - Werner Bessei
- Institute of Animal Science, University of Hohenheim, Garbenstr. 17, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Jörn Bennewitz
- Institute of Animal Science, University of Hohenheim, Garbenstr. 17, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Jens Tetens
- Department of Animal Sciences, Georg-August-University, Burckhardtweg 2, 37077, Göttingen, Germany.,Center for Integrated Breeding Research, Georg-August-University, Albrecht-Thaer-Weg 3, 37075, Göttingen, Germany
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