1
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Chen BD, Lee C, Tapia AL, Reiner AP, Tang H, Kooperberg C, Manson JE, Li Y, Raffield LM. Proteome-wide association study using cis and trans variants and applied to blood cell and lipid-related traits in the Women's Health Initiative study. Genet Epidemiol 2024. [PMID: 38940271 DOI: 10.1002/gepi.22578] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2023] [Revised: 05/26/2024] [Accepted: 06/13/2024] [Indexed: 06/29/2024]
Abstract
In most Proteome-Wide Association Studies (PWAS), variants near the protein-coding gene (±1 Mb), also known as cis single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), are used to predict protein levels, which are then tested for association with phenotypes. However, proteins can be regulated through variants outside of the cis region. An intermediate GWAS step to identify protein quantitative trait loci (pQTL) allows for the inclusion of trans SNPs outside the cis region in protein-level prediction models. Here, we assess the prediction of 540 proteins in 1002 individuals from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), split equally into a GWAS set, an elastic net training set, and a testing set. We compared the testing r2 between measured and predicted protein levels using this proposed approach, to the testing r2 using only cis SNPs. The two methods usually resulted in similar testing r2, but some proteins showed a significant increase in testing r2 with our method. For example, for cartilage acidic protein 1, the testing r2 increased from 0.101 to 0.351. We also demonstrate reproducible findings for predicted protein association with lipid and blood cell traits in WHI participants without proteomics data and in UK Biobank utilizing our PWAS weights.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian D Chen
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
| | - Chanhwa Lee
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
| | - Amanda L Tapia
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Alexander P Reiner
- Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
| | - Hua Tang
- Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA
| | - Charles Kooperberg
- Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, USA
| | - JoAnn E Manson
- Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Yun Li
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
| | - Laura M Raffield
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
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2
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Kharitonova EV, Sun Q, Ockerman F, Chen B, Zhou LY, Cao H, Mathias RA, Auer PL, Ober C, Raffield LM, Reiner AP, Cox NJ, Kelada S, Tao R, Li Y. EndoPRS: Incorporating Endophenotype Information to Improve Polygenic Risk Scores for Clinical Endpoints. MEDRXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR HEALTH SCIENCES 2024:2024.05.23.24307839. [PMID: 38826253 PMCID: PMC11142285 DOI: 10.1101/2024.05.23.24307839] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/04/2024]
Abstract
Polygenic risk score (PRS) prediction of complex diseases can be improved by leveraging related phenotypes. This has motivated the development of several multi-trait PRS methods that jointly model information from genetically correlated traits. However, these methods do not account for vertical pleiotropy between traits, in which one trait acts as a mediator for another. Here, we introduce endoPRS, a weighted lasso model that incorporates information from relevant endophenotypes to improve disease risk prediction without making assumptions about the genetic architecture underlying the endophenotype-disease relationship. Through extensive simulation analysis, we demonstrate the robustness of endoPRS in a variety of complex genetic frameworks. We also apply endoPRS to predict the risk of childhood onset asthma in UK Biobank by leveraging a paired GWAS of eosinophil count, a relevant endophenotype. We find that endoPRS significantly improves prediction compared to many existing PRS methods, including multi-trait PRS methods, MTAG and wMT-BLUP, which suggests advantages of endoPRS in real-life clinical settings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elena V. Kharitonova
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Quan Sun
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Frank Ockerman
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Brian Chen
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Laura Y. Zhou
- Department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
| | - Hongyuan Cao
- Department of Statistics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA
| | - Rasika A. Mathias
- Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
| | - Paul L. Auer
- Department of Biostatistics, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA
| | - Carole Ober
- Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
| | - Laura M. Raffield
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Alexander P. Reiner
- Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105, USA
| | - Nancy J. Cox
- Division of Genetic Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Samir Kelada
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
- Marsico Lung Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Ran Tao
- Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
- Department of Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37203, USA
| | - Yun Li
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
- Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
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3
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Foreman AL, Warth B, Hessel EVS, Price EJ, Schymanski EL, Cantelli G, Parkinson H, Hecht H, Klánová J, Vlaanderen J, Hilscherova K, Vrijheid M, Vineis P, Araujo R, Barouki R, Vermeulen R, Lanone S, Brunak S, Sebert S, Karjalainen T. Adopting Mechanistic Molecular Biology Approaches in Exposome Research for Causal Understanding. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 2024; 58:7256-7269. [PMID: 38641325 PMCID: PMC11064223 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.3c07961] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2023] [Revised: 03/25/2024] [Accepted: 03/27/2024] [Indexed: 04/21/2024]
Abstract
Through investigating the combined impact of the environmental exposures experienced by an individual throughout their lifetime, exposome research provides opportunities to understand and mitigate negative health outcomes. While current exposome research is driven by epidemiological studies that identify associations between exposures and effects, new frameworks integrating more substantial population-level metadata, including electronic health and administrative records, will shed further light on characterizing environmental exposure risks. Molecular biology offers methods and concepts to study the biological and health impacts of exposomes in experimental and computational systems. Of particular importance is the growing use of omics readouts in epidemiological and clinical studies. This paper calls for the adoption of mechanistic molecular biology approaches in exposome research as an essential step in understanding the genotype and exposure interactions underlying human phenotypes. A series of recommendations are presented to make the necessary and appropriate steps to move from exposure association to causation, with a huge potential to inform precision medicine and population health. This includes establishing hypothesis-driven laboratory testing within the exposome field, supported by appropriate methods to read across from model systems research to human.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amy L. Foreman
- European
Molecular Biology Laboratory & European Bioinformatics Institute
(EMBL-EBI), Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SD, U.K.
| | - Benedikt Warth
- Department
of Food Chemistry and Toxicology, University
of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
| | - Ellen V. S. Hessel
- National
Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Antonie van Leeuwenhoeklaan 9, 3721 MA Bilthoven, The Netherlands
| | - Elliott J. Price
- RECETOX,
Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlarska 2, Brno 60200, Czech Republic
| | - Emma L. Schymanski
- Luxembourg
Centre for Systems Biomedicine, University
of Luxembourg, 6 avenue
du Swing, L-4367 Belvaux, Luxembourg
| | - Gaia Cantelli
- European
Molecular Biology Laboratory & European Bioinformatics Institute
(EMBL-EBI), Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SD, U.K.
| | - Helen Parkinson
- European
Molecular Biology Laboratory & European Bioinformatics Institute
(EMBL-EBI), Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SD, U.K.
| | - Helge Hecht
- RECETOX,
Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlarska 2, Brno 60200, Czech Republic
| | - Jana Klánová
- RECETOX,
Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlarska 2, Brno 60200, Czech Republic
| | - Jelle Vlaanderen
- Institute
for Risk Assessment Sciences, Division of Environmental Epidemiology, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 8 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Klara Hilscherova
- RECETOX,
Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlarska 2, Brno 60200, Czech Republic
| | - Martine Vrijheid
- Institute
for Global Health (ISGlobal), Barcelona
Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), Doctor Aiguader, 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
- Universitat
Pompeu Fabra, Carrer
de la Mercè, 12, Ciutat Vella, 08002 Barcelona, Spain
- Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red
Epidemiología
y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Av. Monforte de Lemos, 3-5. Pebellón 11, Planta 0, 28029 Madrid, Spain
| | - Paolo Vineis
- Department
of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College, London SW7 2AZ, U.K.
| | - Rita Araujo
- European Commission, DG Research and Innovation, Sq. Frère-Orban 8, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium
| | | | - Roel Vermeulen
- Institute
for Risk Assessment Sciences, Division of Environmental Epidemiology, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 8 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Sophie Lanone
- Univ Paris Est Creteil, INSERM, IMRB, F-94010 Creteil, France
| | - Søren Brunak
- Novo
Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Blegdamsvej 3B, 2200 København, Denmark
| | - Sylvain Sebert
- Research
Unit of Population Health, University of
Oulu, P.O. Box 8000, FI-90014 Oulu, Finland
| | - Tuomo Karjalainen
- European Commission, DG Research and Innovation, Sq. Frère-Orban 8, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium
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4
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Lu Z, Wang X, Carr M, Kim A, Gazal S, Mohammadi P, Wu L, Gusev A, Pirruccello J, Kachuri L, Mancuso N. Improved multi-ancestry fine-mapping identifies cis-regulatory variants underlying molecular traits and disease risk. MEDRXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR HEALTH SCIENCES 2024:2024.04.15.24305836. [PMID: 38699369 PMCID: PMC11065034 DOI: 10.1101/2024.04.15.24305836] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/05/2024]
Abstract
Multi-ancestry statistical fine-mapping of cis-molecular quantitative trait loci (cis-molQTL) aims to improve the precision of distinguishing causal cis-molQTLs from tagging variants. However, existing approaches fail to reflect shared genetic architectures. To solve this limitation, we present the Sum of Shared Single Effects (SuShiE) model, which leverages LD heterogeneity to improve fine-mapping precision, infer cross-ancestry effect size correlations, and estimate ancestry-specific expression prediction weights. We apply SuShiE to mRNA expression measured in PBMCs (n=956) and LCLs (n=814) together with plasma protein levels (n=854) from individuals of diverse ancestries in the TOPMed MESA and GENOA studies. We find SuShiE fine-maps cis-molQTLs for 16% more genes compared with baselines while prioritizing fewer variants with greater functional enrichment. SuShiE infers highly consistent cis-molQTL architectures across ancestries on average; however, we also find evidence of heterogeneity at genes with predicted loss-of-function intolerance, suggesting that environmental interactions may partially explain differences in cis-molQTL effect sizes across ancestries. Lastly, we leverage estimated cis-molQTL effect-sizes to perform individual-level TWAS and PWAS on six white blood cell-related traits in AOU Biobank individuals (n=86k), and identify 44 more genes compared with baselines, further highlighting its benefits in identifying genes relevant for complex disease risk. Overall, SuShiE provides new insights into the cis-genetic architecture of molecular traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zeyun Lu
- Center for Genetic Epidemiology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Xinran Wang
- Center for Genetic Epidemiology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Matthew Carr
- Center for Genetic Epidemiology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Artem Kim
- Center for Genetic Epidemiology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Steven Gazal
- Center for Genetic Epidemiology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
| | - Pejman Mohammadi
- Center for Immunity and Immunotherapies, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, WA, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
- Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Lang Wu
- Cancer Epidemiology Division, Population Sciences in the Pacific Program, University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, USA
| | - Alexander Gusev
- Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA
| | - James Pirruccello
- Division of Cardiology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Linda Kachuri
- Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
- Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Nicholas Mancuso
- Center for Genetic Epidemiology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
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5
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Wang L, Babushkin N, Liu Z, Liu X. Trans-eQTL mapping in gene sets identifies network effects of genetic variants. CELL GENOMICS 2024; 4:100538. [PMID: 38565144 PMCID: PMC11019359 DOI: 10.1016/j.xgen.2024.100538] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2023] [Revised: 12/08/2023] [Accepted: 03/13/2024] [Indexed: 04/04/2024]
Abstract
Nearly all trait-associated variants identified in genome-wide association studies (GWASs) are noncoding. The cis regulatory effects of these variants have been extensively characterized, but how they affect gene regulation in trans has been the subject of fewer studies because of the difficulty in detecting trans-expression quantitative loci (eQTLs). We developed trans-PCO for detecting trans effects of genetic variants on gene networks. Our simulations demonstrate that trans-PCO substantially outperforms existing trans-eQTL mapping methods. We applied trans-PCO to two gene expression datasets from whole blood, DGN (N = 913) and eQTLGen (N = 31,684), and identified 14,985 high-quality trans-eSNP-module pairs associated with 197 co-expression gene modules and biological processes. We performed colocalization analyses between GWAS loci of 46 complex traits and the trans-eQTLs. We demonstrated that the identified trans effects can help us understand how trait-associated variants affect gene regulatory networks and biological pathways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lili Wang
- The Committee on Genetics, Genomics and Systems Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Department of Medicine, Section of Genetic Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
| | - Nikita Babushkin
- Department of Medicine, Section of Genetic Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
| | - Zhonghua Liu
- Department of Biostatistics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
| | - Xuanyao Liu
- The Committee on Genetics, Genomics and Systems Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Department of Medicine, Section of Genetic Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
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6
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Chhotaray S, Vohra V, Uttam V, Santhosh A, Saxena P, Gahlyan RK, Gowane G. TWAS revealed significant causal loci for milk production and its composition in Murrah buffaloes. Sci Rep 2023; 13:22401. [PMID: 38104199 PMCID: PMC10725422 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-49767-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2023] [Accepted: 12/12/2023] [Indexed: 12/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Milk yield is the most complex trait in dairy animals, and mapping all causal variants even with smallest effect sizes has been difficult with the genome-wide association study (GWAS) sample sizes available in geographical regions with small livestock holdings such as Indian sub-continent. However, Transcriptome-wide association studies (TWAS) could serve as an alternate for fine mapping of expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs). This is a maiden attempt to identify milk production and its composition related genes using TWAS in Murrah buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis). TWAS was conducted on a test (N = 136) set of Murrah buffaloes genotyped through ddRAD sequencing. Their gene expression level was predicted using reference (N = 8) animals having both genotype and mammary epithelial cell (MEC) transcriptome information. Gene expression prediction was performed using Elastic-Net and Dirichlet Process Regression (DPR) model with fivefold cross-validation and without any cross-validation. DPR model without cross-validation predicted 80.92% of the total genes in the test group of Murrah buffaloes which was highest compared to other methods. TWAS in test individuals based on predicted gene expression, identified a significant association of one unique gene for Fat%, and two for SNF% at Bonferroni corrected threshold. The false discovery rates (FDR) corrected P-values of the top ten SNPs identified through GWAS were comparatively higher than TWAS. Gene ontology of TWAS-identified genes was performed to understand the function of these genes, it was revealed that milk production and composition genes were mainly involved in Relaxin, AMPK, and JAK-STAT signaling pathway, along with CCRI, and several key metabolic processes. The present study indicates that TWAS offers a lower false discovery rate and higher significant hits than GWAS for milk production and its composition traits. Hence, it is concluded that TWAS can be effectively used to identify genes and cis-SNPs in a population, which can be used for fabricating a low-density genomic chip for predicting milk production in Murrah buffaloes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Supriya Chhotaray
- Division of Animal Genetics and Breeding, ICAR-Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes, Hisar, Haryana, 125001, India
- Animal Genetics and Breeding Division, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, 132001, India
| | - Vikas Vohra
- Animal Genetics and Breeding Division, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, 132001, India.
| | - Vishakha Uttam
- Animal Genetics and Breeding Division, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, 132001, India
| | - Ameya Santhosh
- Animal Genetics and Breeding Division, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, 132001, India
| | - Punjika Saxena
- Animal Genetics and Breeding Division, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, 132001, India
| | - Rajesh Kumar Gahlyan
- Animal Genetics and Breeding Division, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, 132001, India
| | - Gopal Gowane
- Animal Genetics and Breeding Division, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, 132001, India
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7
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Morris JA, Caragine C, Daniloski Z, Domingo J, Barry T, Lu L, Davis K, Ziosi M, Glinos DA, Hao S, Mimitou EP, Smibert P, Roeder K, Katsevich E, Lappalainen T, Sanjana NE. Discovery of target genes and pathways at GWAS loci by pooled single-cell CRISPR screens. Science 2023; 380:eadh7699. [PMID: 37141313 PMCID: PMC10518238 DOI: 10.1126/science.adh7699] [Citation(s) in RCA: 51] [Impact Index Per Article: 51.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2023] [Accepted: 04/20/2023] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
Most variants associated with complex traits and diseases identified by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) map to noncoding regions of the genome with unknown effects. Using ancestrally diverse, biobank-scale GWAS data, massively parallel CRISPR screens, and single-cell transcriptomic and proteomic sequencing, we discovered 124 cis-target genes of 91 noncoding blood trait GWAS loci. Using precise variant insertion through base editing, we connected specific variants with gene expression changes. We also identified trans-effect networks of noncoding loci when cis target genes encoded transcription factors or microRNAs. Networks were themselves enriched for GWAS variants and demonstrated polygenic contributions to complex traits. This platform enables massively parallel characterization of the target genes and mechanisms of human noncoding variants in both cis and trans.
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Affiliation(s)
- John A. Morris
- New York Genome Center, New York, NY, 10013, USA
- Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA
| | | | - Zharko Daniloski
- New York Genome Center, New York, NY, 10013, USA
- Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA
| | | | - Timothy Barry
- Department of Statistics and Data Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA
| | - Lu Lu
- New York Genome Center, New York, NY, 10013, USA
| | - Kyrie Davis
- New York Genome Center, New York, NY, 10013, USA
| | | | | | - Stephanie Hao
- Technology Innovation Lab, New York Genome Center, New York, NY, 10013, USA
| | - Eleni P. Mimitou
- Technology Innovation Lab, New York Genome Center, New York, NY, 10013, USA
| | - Peter Smibert
- Technology Innovation Lab, New York Genome Center, New York, NY, 10013, USA
| | - Kathryn Roeder
- Department of Statistics and Data Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA
- Computational Biology Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA
| | - Eugene Katsevich
- Department of Statistics and Data Science, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
| | - Tuuli Lappalainen
- New York Genome Center, New York, NY, 10013, USA
- Science for Life Laboratory, Department of Gene Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 171 65 Solna, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Neville E. Sanjana
- New York Genome Center, New York, NY, 10013, USA
- Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA
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8
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Sullivan PF, Meadows JRS, Gazal S, Phan BN, Li X, Genereux DP, Dong MX, Bianchi M, Andrews G, Sakthikumar S, Nordin J, Roy A, Christmas MJ, Marinescu VD, Wang C, Wallerman O, Xue J, Yao S, Sun Q, Szatkiewicz J, Wen J, Huckins LM, Lawler A, Keough KC, Zheng Z, Zeng J, Wray NR, Li Y, Johnson J, Chen J, Paten B, Reilly SK, Hughes GM, Weng Z, Pollard KS, Pfenning AR, Forsberg-Nilsson K, Karlsson EK, Lindblad-Toh K. Leveraging base-pair mammalian constraint to understand genetic variation and human disease. Science 2023; 380:eabn2937. [PMID: 37104612 PMCID: PMC10259825 DOI: 10.1126/science.abn2937] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2021] [Accepted: 02/09/2023] [Indexed: 04/29/2023]
Abstract
Thousands of genomic regions have been associated with heritable human diseases, but attempts to elucidate biological mechanisms are impeded by an inability to discern which genomic positions are functionally important. Evolutionary constraint is a powerful predictor of function, agnostic to cell type or disease mechanism. Single-base phyloP scores from 240 mammals identified 3.3% of the human genome as significantly constrained and likely functional. We compared phyloP scores to genome annotation, association studies, copy-number variation, clinical genetics findings, and cancer data. Constrained positions are enriched for variants that explain common disease heritability more than other functional annotations. Our results improve variant annotation but also highlight that the regulatory landscape of the human genome still needs to be further explored and linked to disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patrick F. Sullivan
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina Medical School, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
- Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, 17177 Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Jennifer R. S. Meadows
- Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75132 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Steven Gazal
- Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
- Center for Genetic Epidemiology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
| | - BaDoi N. Phan
- Department of Computational Biology, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
| | - Xue Li
- Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Diane P. Genereux
- Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA
| | - Michael X. Dong
- Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75132 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Matteo Bianchi
- Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75132 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Gregory Andrews
- Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA
| | - Sharadha Sakthikumar
- Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75132 Uppsala, Sweden
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Jessika Nordin
- Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75132 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Ananya Roy
- Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75185 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Matthew J. Christmas
- Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75132 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Voichita D. Marinescu
- Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75132 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Chao Wang
- Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75132 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Ola Wallerman
- Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75132 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - James Xue
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- Center for System Biology, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Shuyang Yao
- Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, 17177 Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Quan Sun
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina Medical School, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Jin Szatkiewicz
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina Medical School, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Jia Wen
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina Medical School, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Laura M. Huckins
- Department of Genetic and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA
| | - Alyssa Lawler
- Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
- Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
| | - Kathleen C. Keough
- Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - Zhili Zheng
- Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
| | - Jian Zeng
- Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
| | - Naomi R. Wray
- Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
| | - Yun Li
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina Medical School, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | - Jessica Johnson
- Department of Genetic and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA
| | - Jiawen Chen
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina Medical School, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
| | | | - Benedict Paten
- UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
| | - Steven K. Reilly
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Graham M. Hughes
- School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
| | - Zhiping Weng
- Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA
| | - Katherine S. Pollard
- Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
- Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - Andreas R. Pfenning
- Department of Computational Biology, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
- Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
| | - Karin Forsberg-Nilsson
- Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75185 Uppsala, Sweden
- Biodiscovery Institute, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
| | - Elinor K. Karlsson
- Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- Program in Molecular Medicine, UMass Chan Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA
| | - Kerstin Lindblad-Toh
- Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75132 Uppsala, Sweden
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
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9
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Zhong W, Liu W, Chen J, Sun Q, Hu M, Li Y. Understanding the function of regulatory DNA interactions in the interpretation of non-coding GWAS variants. Front Cell Dev Biol 2022; 10:957292. [PMID: 36060805 PMCID: PMC9437546 DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2022.957292] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2022] [Accepted: 07/21/2022] [Indexed: 01/11/2023] Open
Abstract
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified a vast number of variants associated with various complex human diseases and traits. However, most of these GWAS variants reside in non-coding regions producing no proteins, making the interpretation of these variants a daunting challenge. Prior evidence indicates that a subset of non-coding variants detected within or near cis-regulatory elements (e.g., promoters, enhancers, silencers, and insulators) might play a key role in disease etiology by regulating gene expression. Advanced sequencing- and imaging-based technologies, together with powerful computational methods, enabling comprehensive characterization of regulatory DNA interactions, have substantially improved our understanding of the three-dimensional (3D) genome architecture. Recent literature witnesses plenty of examples where using chromosome conformation capture (3C)-based technologies successfully links non-coding variants to their target genes and prioritizes relevant tissues or cell types. These examples illustrate the critical capability of 3D genome organization in annotating non-coding GWAS variants. This review discusses how 3D genome organization information contributes to elucidating the potential roles of non-coding GWAS variants in disease etiology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wujuan Zhong
- Biostatistics and Research Decision Sciences, Merck & Co, Inc, Rahway, NJ, United States
| | - Weifang Liu
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Jiawen Chen
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Quan Sun
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
| | - Ming Hu
- Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH, United States
| | - Yun Li
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
- Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
- Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
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