Novel risk genes identified in a genome-wide association study for coronary artery disease in patients with type 1 diabetes

Background

Patients with type 1 diabetes are more at risk of coronary artery disease than the general population. Although evidence points to a genetic risk there have been no study investigating genetic risk factors of coronary artery disease specific to individuals with type 1 diabetes. To identify low frequency and common genetic variations associated with coronary artery disease in populations of individuals with type 1 diabetes.

Methods

A two-stage genome wide association study was conducted. The discovery phase involved the meta-analysis of three genome-wide association cohorts totaling 434 patients with type 1 diabetes and coronary artery disease (cases) and 3123 T1D individuals with no evidence of coronary artery disease (controls). Replication of the top association signals (p < 10⁻⁵) was performed in five additional independent cohorts totaling 585 cases and 2612 controls.

Results

One locus (rs115829748, located upstream of the MAP1B gene) reached the statistical threshold of 5 × 10⁻⁸ for genome-wide significance but did not replicate. Nevertheless, three single nucleotide polymorphisms provided suggestive evidence for association with coronary artery disease in the combined studies: CDK18 rs138760780 (OR = 2.60 95% confidence interval [1.75–3.85], p = 2.02 × 10⁻⁶), FAM189A2 rs12344245 (OR = 1.85 [1.41–2.43], p = 8.52 × 10⁻⁶) and PKD1 rs116092985 (OR = 1.53 [1.27–1.85], p = 1.01 × 10⁻⁵). In addition, our analyses suggested that genetic variations at the ANKS1A, COL4A2 and APOE loci previously found associated with coronary artery disease in the general population could have stronger effects in patients with type 1 diabetes.

Conclusions

This study suggests three novel candidate genes for coronary artery disease in the subgroup of patients affected with type 1 diabetes. The detected associations deserve to be definitively validated in additional epidemiological studies.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12933-018-0705-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Heavier smoking may lead to a relative increase in waist circumference: evidence for a causal relationship from a Mendelian randomisation meta-analysis. The CARTA consortium

OBJECTIVES

To investigate, using a Mendelian randomisation approach, whether heavier smoking is associated with a range of regional adiposity phenotypes, in particular those related to abdominal adiposity.

DESIGN

Mendelian randomisation meta-analyses using a genetic variant (rs16969968/rs1051730 in the CHRNA5-CHRNA3-CHRNB4 gene region) as a proxy for smoking heaviness, of the associations of smoking heaviness with a range of adiposity phenotypes.

PARTICIPANTS

148,731 current, former and never-smokers of European ancestry aged ≥ 16 years from 29 studies in the consortium for Causal Analysis Research in Tobacco and Alcohol (CARTA).

PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES

Waist and hip circumferences, and waist-hip ratio.

RESULTS

The data included up to 66,809 never-smokers, 43,009 former smokers and 38,913 current daily cigarette smokers. Among current smokers, for each extra minor allele, the geometric mean was lower for waist circumference by -0.40% (95% CI -0.57% to -0.22%), with effects on hip circumference, waist-hip ratio and body mass index (BMI) being -0.31% (95% CI -0.42% to -0.19), -0.08% (-0.19% to 0.03%) and -0.74% (-0.96% to -0.51%), respectively. In contrast, among never-smokers, these effects were higher by 0.23% (0.09% to 0.36%), 0.17% (0.08% to 0.26%), 0.07% (-0.01% to 0.15%) and 0.35% (0.18% to 0.52%), respectively. When adjusting the three central adiposity measures for BMI, the effects among current smokers changed direction and were higher by 0.14% (0.05% to 0.22%) for waist circumference, 0.02% (-0.05% to 0.08%) for hip circumference and 0.10% (0.02% to 0.19%) for waist-hip ratio, for each extra minor allele.

CONCLUSIONS

For a given BMI, a gene variant associated with increased cigarette consumption was associated with increased waist circumference. Smoking in an effort to control weight may lead to accumulation of central adiposity.