Obesity-insulin targeted genes in the 3p26-25 region in human studies and LG/J and SM/J mice

Leveraging human-mouse studies to advance the genetics of hearing impairment in Africa

Mouse models are used extensively to understand human pathobiology and mechanistic functions of disease-associated loci. However, in this review, we investigate the potential of using genetic mouse models to identify genetic markers that can disrupt hearing thresholds in mice and then target the hearing-enriched orthologues and loci in humans. Currently, little is known about the real prevalence of genes that cause hearing impairment (HI) in Africa. Pre-screening mouse cell lines to identify orthologues of interest has the potential to improve the genetic diagnosis for HI in Africa to a significant percentage, for example, 10-20%. Furthermore, the functionality of a candidate gene derived from mouse screening with heterogeneous genetic backgrounds and multi-omic approaches can shed light on the molecular, genetic heterogeneity and plausible mode of inheritance of a gene in hearing-impaired individuals especially in the absence of large families to investigate.

Targeting Clic1 for the treatment of obesity: A novel therapeutic strategy to reduce food intake and body weight

OBJECTIVE

Despite great advances in obesity therapeutics in recent years, there is still a need to identify additional therapeutic targets for the treatment of this disease. We previously discovered a signature of genes, including Chloride intracellular channel 1 (Clic1), whose expression was associated with drug-induced weight gain, and in these studies, we assess the effect of Clic1 inhibition on food intake and body weight in mice.

METHODS

We studied the impact of Clic1 inhibition in mouse models of binge-eating, diet-induced obese mice and genetic models of obesity (Magel2 KO mice).

RESULTS

Clic1 knockout (KO) mice ate significantly less and had a lower body weight than WT littermates when either fed chow or high fat diet. Furthermore, pharmacological inhibition of Clic1 in diet-induced obese mice resulted in suppression of food intake and promoted highly efficacious weight loss. Clic1 inhibition also reduced food intake in binge-eating models and hyperphagic Magel2 KO mice. We observed that chronic obesity resulted in a significant change in subcellular localization of Clic1 with an increased ratio of Clic1 in the membrane in the obese state. These observations provide a novel therapeutic strategy to block Clic1 translocation as a potential mechanism to reduce food intake and lower body weight.

CONCLUSIONS

These studies attribute a novel role of Clic1 as a driver of food intake and overconsumption. In summary, we have identified hypothalamic expression of Clic1 plays a key role in food intake, providing a novel therapeutic target to treat overconsumption that is the root cause of modern obesity.

Genome-wide association study identifies African-ancestry specific variants for metabolic syndrome

The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a constellation of metabolic disorders that increase the risk of developing several diseases including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Although genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have successfully identified variants associated with individual traits comprising MetS, the genetic basis and pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the clustering of these traits remain unclear. We conducted GWAS of MetS in 1427 Africans from Ghana and Nigeria followed by replication testing and meta-analysis in another continental African sample from Kenya. Further replication testing was performed in an African American sample from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. We found two African-ancestry specific variants that were significantly associated with MetS: SNP rs73989312[A] near CA10 that conferred increased risk (P=3.86 × 10(-8), OR=6.80) and SNP rs77244975[C] in CTNNA3 that conferred protection against MetS (P=1.63 × 10(-8), OR=0.15). Given the exclusive expression of CA10 in the brain, our CA10 finding strengthens previously reported link between brain function and MetS. We also identified two variants that are not African specific: rs76822696[A] near RALYL associated with increased MetS risk (P=7.37 × 10(-9), OR=1.59) and rs7964157[T] near KSR2 associated with reduced MetS risk (P=4.52 × 10(-8), Pmeta=7.82 × 10(-9), OR=0.53). The KSR2 locus displayed pleiotropic associations with triglyceride and measures of blood pressure. Rare KSR2 mutations have been reported to be associated with early onset obesity and insulin resistance. Finally, we replicated the LPL and CETP loci previously found to be associated with MetS in Europeans. These findings provide novel insights into the genetics of MetS in Africans and demonstrate the utility of conducting trans-ethnic disease gene mapping studies for testing the cosmopolitan significance of GWAS signals of cardio-metabolic traits.

Using whole-genome sequences of the LG/J and SM/J inbred mouse strains to prioritize quantitative trait genes and nucleotides

Background

The laboratory mouse is the most commonly used model for studying variation in complex traits relevant to human disease. Here we present the whole-genome sequences of two inbred strains, LG/J and SM/J, which are frequently used to study variation in complex traits as diverse as aging, bone-growth, adiposity, maternal behavior, and methamphetamine sensitivity.

Results

We identified small nucleotide variants (SNVs) and structural variants (SVs) in the LG/J and SM/J strains relative to the reference genome and discovered novel variants in these two strains by comparing their sequences to other mouse genomes. We find that 39% of the LG/J and SM/J genomes are identical-by-descent (IBD). We characterized amino-acid changing mutations using three algorithms: LRT, PolyPhen-2 and SIFT. We also identified polymorphisms between LG/J and SM/J that fall in regulatory regions and highly informative transcription factor binding sites (TFBS). We intersected these functional predictions with quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapped in advanced intercrosses of these two strains. We find that QTL are both over-represented in non-IBD regions and highly enriched for variants predicted to have a functional impact. Variants in QTL associated with metabolic (231 QTL identified in an F₁₆ generation) and developmental (41 QTL identified in an F₃₄ generation) traits were interrogated and we highlight candidate quantitative trait genes (QTG) and nucleotides (QTN) in a QTL on chr13 associated with variation in basal glucose levels and in a QTL on chr6 associated with variation in tibia length.

Conclusions

We show how integrating genomic sequence with QTL reduces the QTL search space and helps researchers prioritize candidate genes and nucleotides for experimental follow-up. Additionally, given the LG/J and SM/J phylogenetic context among inbred strains, these data contribute important information to the genomic landscape of the laboratory mouse.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1592-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The uniform-score gene set analysis for identifying common pathways associated with different diabetes traits

Background

Genetic heritability and expression study have shown that different diabetes traits have common genetic components and pathways. A computationally efficient pathway analysis of GWAS results will benefit post-GWAS study of SNP associations and identification of common genetic pathways from diabetes GWAS can help to improve understanding of the disease pathogenesis.

Results

We proposed a uniform-score gene-set analysis (USGSA) with implemented package to unify different gene measures by a uniform score for identifying pathways from GWAS data, and use a pre-generated permutation distribution table to quickly obtain multiple-testing adjusted p-value. Simulation studies of uniform score for four gene measures (minP, 2ndP, simP and fishP) have shown that USGSA has strictly controlled family-wise error rate. The power depends on types of gene measure. USGSA with a two-stage study strategy was applied to identify common pathways associated with diabetes traits based on public dbGaP GWAS results. The study identified 7 gene sets that contain binding motifs at promoter region of component genes for 5 transcription factors (TFs) of FOXO4, TCF3, NFAT, VSX1 and POU2F1, and 1 microRNA of mir-218. These gene sets include 25 common genes that are among top 5% of the gene associations over genome for all GWAS. Previous evidences showed that nearly all of these genes are mainly expressed in the brain.

Conclusions

USGSA is a computationally efficient approach for pathway analysis of GWAS data with promoted interpretability and comparability. The pathway analysis suggested that different diabetes traits share common pathways and component genes are potentially regulated by common TFs and microRNA. The result also indicated that the central nervous system has a critical role in diabetes pathogenesis. The findings will be important in formulating novel hypotheses for guiding follow-up studies.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1515-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Fine-mapping QTLs in advanced intercross lines and other outbred populations

Quantitative genetic studies in model organisms, particularly in mice, have been extremely successful in identifying chromosomal regions that are associated with a wide variety of behavioral and other traits. However, it is now widely understood that identification of the underlying genes will be far more challenging. In the last few years, a variety of populations have been utilized in an effort to more finely map these chromosomal regions with the goal of identifying specific genes. The common property of these newer populations is that linkage disequilibrium spans relatively short distances, which permits fine-scale mapping resolution. This review focuses on advanced intercross lines (AILs) which are the simplest such population. As originally proposed in 1995 by Darvasi and Soller, an AIL is the product of intercrossing two inbred strains beyond the F2 generation. Unlike recombinant inbred strains, AILs are maintained as outbred populations; brother-sister matings are specifically avoided. Each generation of intercrossing beyond the F2 further degrades linkage disequilibrium between adjacent makers, which allows for fine-scale mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Advances in genotyping technology and techniques for the statistical analysis of AILs have permitted rapid advances in the application of AILs. We review some of the analytical issues and available software, including QTLRel, EMMA, EMMAX, GEMMA, TASSEL, GRAMMAR, WOMBAT, Mendel, and others.

Bhlhe40, a potential diabetic modifier gene on Dbm1 locus, negatively controls myocyte fatty acid oxidation

We have previously identified significant quantitative trait loci (QTL) Dbm1 (diabetic modifier QTL 1) on chromosome 6, affecting plasma glucose and insulin concentrations and body weight on F(2) progeny of hypoinsulinemic diabetic Akita mice, with the heterozygous Ins2 gene Cys96Tyr mutation, and non-diabetic A/J mice. To discover diabetic modifier genes on Dbm1, we constructed congenic strain for Dbm1 using the Akita allele as donor in A/J allele genetic background, and compared diabetes-related phenotypes to control mice. The homozygote for Akita allele of Dbm1 was associated with lower plasma glucose concentrations in glucose tolerance test (GTT) in the hypoinsulinemic condition derived from the Ins2 mutation and lower plasma insulin concentrations and body weight in the normoinsulinemic condition without the Ins2 mutation than the homozygote for A/J allele, as we performed QTL analysis on F(2) intercross mice. The Akita allele also decreased the epididymal white adipose tissue (EWAT) weight. According to the analysis of sub-congenic strains, we narrowed down the responsible diabetic modifier region to 9 Mb. As fourteen candidate genes exist in this region, we analyzed genomic variants of these genes and gene expression in the muscle, liver, and EWAT and identified that Bhlhe40 gene expression in muscle is decreased in congenic mice. According to the in vitro functional analyses, Bhlhe40 was shown to negatively control fatty acid oxidation in cultured myocyte. Based on these, we conclude that Bhlhe40 is a possible candidate diabetic modifier gene responsible for Dbm1 locus affecting diabetes and/or obesity through negatively controlling fatty acid oxidation in muscle.

Disruption of the cereblon gene enhances hepatic AMPK activity and prevents high-fat diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance in mice

A nonsense mutation in cereblon (CRBN) causes a mild type of mental retardation in humans. An earlier study showed that CRBN negatively regulates the functional activity of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in vitro by binding directly to the α1-subunit of the AMPK complex. However, the in vivo role of CRBN was not studied. For elucidation of the physiological functions of Crbn, a mouse strain was generated in which the Crbn gene was deleted throughout the whole body. In Crbn-deficient mice fed a normal diet, AMPK in the liver showed hyperphosphorylation, which indicated the constitutive activation of AMPK. Since Crbn-deficient mice showed significantly less weight gain when fed a high-fat diet and their insulin sensitivity was considerably improved, the functions of Crbn in the liver were primarily investigated. These results provide the first in vivo evidence that Crbn is a negative modulator of AMPK, which suggests that Crbn may be a potential target for metabolic disorders of the liver.