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Zhu X, Ma S, Wong WH. Genetic effects of sequence-conserved enhancer-like elements on human complex traits. Genome Biol 2024; 25:1. [PMID: 38167462 PMCID: PMC10759394 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-023-03142-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2022] [Accepted: 12/08/2023] [Indexed: 01/05/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The vast majority of findings from human genome-wide association studies (GWAS) map to non-coding sequences, complicating their mechanistic interpretations and clinical translations. Non-coding sequences that are evolutionarily conserved and biochemically active could offer clues to the mechanisms underpinning GWAS discoveries. However, genetic effects of such sequences have not been systematically examined across a wide range of human tissues and traits, hampering progress to fully understand regulatory causes of human complex traits. RESULTS Here we develop a simple yet effective strategy to identify functional elements exhibiting high levels of human-mouse sequence conservation and enhancer-like biochemical activity, which scales well to 313 epigenomic datasets across 106 human tissues and cell types. Combined with 468 GWAS of European (EUR) and East Asian (EAS) ancestries, these elements show tissue-specific enrichments of heritability and causal variants for many traits, which are significantly stronger than enrichments based on enhancers without sequence conservation. These elements also help prioritize candidate genes that are functionally relevant to body mass index (BMI) and schizophrenia but were not reported in previous GWAS with large sample sizes. CONCLUSIONS Our findings provide a comprehensive assessment of how sequence-conserved enhancer-like elements affect complex traits in diverse tissues and demonstrate a generalizable strategy of integrating evolutionary and biochemical data to elucidate human disease genetics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiang Zhu
- Department of Statistics, The Pennsylvania State University, 326 Thomas Building, University Park, 16802, PA, USA.
- Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, 201 Huck Life Sciences Building, University Park, 16802, PA, USA.
- Department of Statistics, Stanford University, 390 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, 94305, CA, USA.
| | - Shining Ma
- Department of Statistics, Stanford University, 390 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, 94305, CA, USA
- Department of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University School of Medicine, 1265 Welch Road MC5464, Stanford, 94305, CA, USA
| | - Wing Hung Wong
- Department of Statistics, Stanford University, 390 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, 94305, CA, USA.
- Department of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University School of Medicine, 1265 Welch Road MC5464, Stanford, 94305, CA, USA.
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Mukherjee D, Lee SA, Almeida D. Daily Affective Dynamics in Major Depressive Disorder: The Role of Daily Stressors and Positive Events. Affect Sci 2023; 4:757-769. [PMID: 38156257 PMCID: PMC10751287 DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00209-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2022] [Accepted: 07/19/2023] [Indexed: 12/30/2023]
Abstract
This study examined daily affective dynamic indices among individuals with a major depressive disorder (MDD) diagnosis in the past one year at the time of the interview, focusing on affective variability and change in affect in response to daily events (affective reactivity). Data were from the main survey and daily diary project of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study. Participants (N = 1,970; nMDD = 202; nnon-MDD = 1,768) completed structured clinical interviews on mental health and telephone interviews about their daily experiences spanning eight consecutive days. Multilevel models revealed that the MDD group experienced greater positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) variability than the non-MDD group. On days that at least one stressful event was reported, the MDD group experienced a greater decrease in PA and a greater increase in NA. On days that at least one positive event was reported, the MDD group experienced a greater increase in PA and a greater decrease in NA. Changes in affect to daily events, particularly the mood brightening effect, may be indicators of depression and potential targets for intervention. Limitations of the study include a community sample, reliance on self-reported measures of daily stressors and positive events, inclusion of remitted and current MDD participants, and the DSM-III-R based criteria for MDD diagnosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dahlia Mukherjee
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA USA
| | - Sun Ah Lee
- Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State University, University Park, PA USA
| | - David Almeida
- Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State University, University Park, PA USA
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Scott JT, Collier KM, Pugel J, O'Neill P, Long EC, Fernandes MA, Cruz K, Gay B, Giray C, Crowley DM. SciComm Optimizer for Policy Engagement: a randomized controlled trial of the SCOPE model on state legislators' research use in public discourse. Implement Sci 2023; 18:12. [PMID: 37147643 PMCID: PMC10160730 DOI: 10.1186/s13012-023-01268-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2022] [Accepted: 03/24/2023] [Indexed: 05/07/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND While prior work has revealed conditions that foster policymakers' use of research evidence, few studies have rigorously investigated the effectiveness of theory-based practices. Specifically, policymakers are most apt to use research evidence when it is timely, relevant, brief, and messaged appropriately, as well as when it facilitates interactive engagement. This study sought to experimentally evaluate an enhanced research dissemination intervention, known as the SciComm Optimizer for Policy Engagement (SCOPE), implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic among US state legislators. METHODS State legislators assigned to health committees and their staff were randomized to receive the SCOPE intervention. This involved providing academic researchers with a pathway for translating and disseminating research relevant to current legislative priorities via fact sheets emailed directly to officials. The intervention occurred April 2020-March 2021. Research language was measured in state legislators' social media posts. RESULTS Legislators randomized to receive the intervention, relative to the control group, produced 24% more social media posts containing research language related to COVID-19. Secondary analyses revealed that these findings were driven by two different types of research language. Intervention officials produced 67% more COVID-related social media posts referencing technical language (e.g., statistical methods), as well as 28% more posts that referenced research-based concepts. However, they produced 31% fewer posts that referenced creating or disseminating new knowledge. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that strategic, targeted science communication efforts may have the potential to change state legislators' public discourse and use of evidence. Strategic science communication efforts are particularly needed in light of the role government officials have played in communicating about the pandemic to the general public.
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Affiliation(s)
- J Taylor Scott
- Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA.
| | | | - Jessica Pugel
- Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA
| | - Patrick O'Neill
- Psychology Department, Teachers College at Columbia University, New York City, USA
| | - Elizabeth C Long
- Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA
| | - Mary A Fernandes
- Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA
| | - Katherine Cruz
- Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA
| | - Brittany Gay
- Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA
| | - Cagla Giray
- Center for Health Security, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA
| | - D Max Crowley
- Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA
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Hall MA, Wallace J, Lucas AM, Bradford Y, Verma SS, Müller-Myhsok B, Passero K, Zhou J, McGuigan J, Jiang B, Pendergrass SA, Zhang Y, Peissig P, Brilliant M, Sleiman P, Hakonarson H, Harley JB, Kiryluk K, Van Steen K, Moore JH, Ritchie MD. Novel EDGE encoding method enhances ability to identify genetic interactions. PLoS Genet 2021; 17:e1009534. [PMID: 34086673 PMCID: PMC8208534 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009534] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2020] [Revised: 06/16/2021] [Accepted: 04/06/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Assumptions are made about the genetic model of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) when choosing a traditional genetic encoding: additive, dominant, and recessive. Furthermore, SNPs across the genome are unlikely to demonstrate identical genetic models. However, running SNP-SNP interaction analyses with every combination of encodings raises the multiple testing burden. Here, we present a novel and flexible encoding for genetic interactions, the elastic data-driven genetic encoding (EDGE), in which SNPs are assigned a heterozygous value based on the genetic model they demonstrate in a dataset prior to interaction testing. We assessed the power of EDGE to detect genetic interactions using 29 combinations of simulated genetic models and found it outperformed the traditional encoding methods across 10%, 30%, and 50% minor allele frequencies (MAFs). Further, EDGE maintained a low false-positive rate, while additive and dominant encodings demonstrated inflation. We evaluated EDGE and the traditional encodings with genetic data from the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network for five phenotypes: age-related macular degeneration (AMD), age-related cataract, glaucoma, type 2 diabetes (T2D), and resistant hypertension. A multi-encoding genome-wide association study (GWAS) for each phenotype was performed using the traditional encodings, and the top results of the multi-encoding GWAS were considered for SNP-SNP interaction using the traditional encodings and EDGE. EDGE identified a novel SNP-SNP interaction for age-related cataract that no other method identified: rs7787286 (MAF: 0.041; intergenic region of chromosome 7)–rs4695885 (MAF: 0.34; intergenic region of chromosome 4) with a Bonferroni LRT p of 0.018. A SNP-SNP interaction was found in data from the UK Biobank within 25 kb of these SNPs using the recessive encoding: rs60374751 (MAF: 0.030) and rs6843594 (MAF: 0.34) (Bonferroni LRT p: 0.026). We recommend using EDGE to flexibly detect interactions between SNPs exhibiting diverse action. Although traditional genetic encodings are widely implemented in genetics research, including in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and epistasis, each method makes assumptions that may not reflect the underlying etiology. Here, we introduce a novel encoding method that estimates and assigns an individualized data-driven encoding for each single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP): the elastic data-driven genetic encoding (EDGE). With simulations, we demonstrate that this novel method is more accurate and robust than traditional encoding methods in estimating heterozygous genotype values, reducing the type I error, and detecting SNP-SNP interactions. We further applied the traditional encodings and EDGE to biomedical data from the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network for five phenotypes, and EDGE identified a novel interaction for age-related cataract not detected by traditional methods, which replicated in data from the UK Biobank. EDGE provides an alternative approach to understanding and modeling diverse SNP models and is recommended for studying complex genetics in common human phenotypes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Molly A. Hall
- Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, College of Agricultural Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Penn State Cancer Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - John Wallace
- Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, College of Agricultural Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Anastasia M. Lucas
- Department of Genetics, Institute for Biomedical Informatics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Yuki Bradford
- Department of Genetics, Institute for Biomedical Informatics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Shefali S. Verma
- Department of Genetics, Institute for Biomedical Informatics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Bertram Müller-Myhsok
- Department of Translational Research in Psychiatry, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany
- Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (SyNergy), Munich, Germany
- Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
| | - Kristin Passero
- Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Jiayan Zhou
- Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, College of Agricultural Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - John McGuigan
- Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, College of Agricultural Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Beibei Jiang
- Department of Translational Research in Psychiatry, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany
- Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (SyNergy), Munich, Germany
- Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
| | | | - Yanfei Zhang
- Genomic Medicine Institute, Geisinger Health System, Danville, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Peggy Peissig
- Center for Precision Medicine Research, Marshfield Clinic Research Institute, Marshfield, Wisconsin, United States of America
| | - Murray Brilliant
- Center for Precision Medicine Research, Marshfield Clinic Research Institute, Marshfield, Wisconsin, United States of America
| | - Patrick Sleiman
- Department of Pediatrics, Center for Applied Genomics, Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Hakon Hakonarson
- Department of Pediatrics, Center for Applied Genomics, Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - John B. Harley
- Center for Autoimmune Genomics and Etiology (CAGE), Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
- United States Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America
| | - Krzysztof Kiryluk
- Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America
| | - Kristel Van Steen
- WELBIO, GIGA-R Medical Genomics-BIO3, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
- Department of Human Genetics, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Jason H. Moore
- Department of Genetics, Institute for Biomedical Informatics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Marylyn D. Ritchie
- Department of Genetics, Institute for Biomedical Informatics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
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Abstract
The Women's March of 2017 generated unprecedented levels of participation in the largest, single day, protest in history to date. The marchers protested the election of President Donald Trump and rallied in support of several civil issues such as women's rights. "Sister marches" evolved in at least 680 locations across the United States. Both positive and negative reactions to the March found their way into social media, with criticism stemming from certain, conservative, political sources and other groups. In this study, we investigate the extent to which this notable, historic event influenced sentiment on Twitter, and the degree to which responses differed by geographic area within the continental U.S. Tweets about the event rose to an impressive peak of over 12% of all geo-located tweets by mid-day of the March, Jan. 21. Messages included in tweets associated with the March tended to be positive in sentiment, on average, with a mean of 0.34 and a median of 0.07 on a scale of -4 to +4. In fact, tweets associated with the March were more positive than all other geo-located tweets during the day of the March. Exceptions to this pattern of positive sentiment occurred only in seven metropolitan areas, most of which involved very small numbers of tweets. Little evidence surfaced of extensive patterns of negative, aggressive messages towards the event in this set of tweets. Given the widespread nature of online harassment and sexist tweets, more generally, the results are notable. In sum, online reactions to the March on this social media platform suggest that this modern arm of the Women's Movement received considerable, virtual support across the country.
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Affiliation(s)
- Diane H. Felmlee
- Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Population Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Justine I. Blanford
- Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Dutton e-Education Institution, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Stephen A. Matthews
- Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Population Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Alan M. MacEachren
- Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, United States of America
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