Fuchsberger, C.

Genome-wide association and functional follow-up reveals new loci for kidney function (Article)

2012-03-01T00:00:00Z

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is an important public health problem with a genetic component. We performed genome-wide association studies in up to 130,600 European ancestry participants overall, and stratified for key CKD risk factors. We uncovered 6 new loci in association with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), the primary clinical measure of CKD, in or near MPPED2, DDX1, SLC47A1, CDK12, CASP9, and INO80. Morpholino knockdown of mpped2 and casp9 in zebrafish embryos revealed podocyte and tubular abnormalities with altered dextran clearance, suggesting a role for these genes in renal function. By providing new insights into genes that regulate renal function, these results could further our understanding of the pathogenesis of CKD.

Common variants in 22 loci are associated with QRS duration and cardiac ventricular conduction (Article)

2010-12-01T00:00:00Z

The QRS interval, from the beginning of the Q wave to the end of the S wave on an electrocardiogram, reflects ventricular depolarization and conduction time and is a risk factor for mortality, sudden death and heart failure. We performed a genome-wide association meta-analysis in 40,407 individuals of European descent from 14 studies, with further genotyping in 7,170 additional Europeans, and we identified 22 loci associated with QRS duration (P < 5 × 10 -8). These loci map in or near genes in pathways with established roles in ventricular conduction such as sodium channels, transcription factors and calcium-handling proteins, but also point to previously unidentified biologic processes, such as kinase inhibitors and genes related to tumorigenesis. We demonstrate that SCN10A, a candidate gene at the most significantly associated locus in this study, is expressed in the mouse ventricular conduction system, and treatment with a selective SCN10A blocker prolongs QRS duration. These findings extend our current knowledge of ventricular depolarization and conduction.

Genes predict village of origin in rural Europe (Article)

2010-11-01T00:00:00Z

The genetic structure of human populations is important in population genetics, forensics and medicine. Using genome-wide scans and individuals with all four grandparents born in the same settlement, we here demonstrate remarkable geographical structure across 8-30 km in three different parts of rural Europe. After excluding close kin and inbreeding, village of origin could still be predicted correctly on the basis of genetic data for 89-100% of individuals.

Genome-wide association analysis identifies multiple loci related to resting heart rate (Article)

2010-07-16T00:00:00Z

Higher resting heart rate is associated with increased cardiovascular disease and mortality risk. Though heritable factors play a substantial role in population variation, little is known about specific genetic determinants. This knowledge can impact clinical care by identifying novel factors that influence pathologic heart rate states, modulate heart rate through cardiac structure and function or by improving our understanding of the physiology of heart rate regulation. To identify common genetic variants associated with heart rate, we performed a meta-analysis of 15 genome-wide association studies (GWAS), including 38 991 subjects of European ancestry, estimating the association between age-, sex-and body mass-adjusted RR interval (inverse heart rate) and ~2.5 million markers. Results with P < 5 × 10-8were considered genome-wide significant. We constructed regression models with multiple markers to assess whether results at less stringent thresholds were likely to be truly associated with RR interval. We identified six novel associations with resting heart rate at six loci: 6q22 near GJA1; 14q12 near MYH7; 12p12 near SOX5, c12orf67, BCAT1, LRMP and CASC1; 6q22 near SLC35F1, PLN and c6orf204; 7q22 near SLC12A9 and UfSp1; and 11q12 near FADS1. Associations at 6q22 400 kb away from GJA1, at 14q12 MYH6 and at 1q32 near CD34 identified in previously published GWAS were confirmed. In aggregate, these variants explain ~0.7% of RR interval variance. A multivariant regression model including 20 variants with P < 10-5increased the explained variance to 1.6%, suggesting that some loci falling short of genome-wide significance are likely truly associated. Future research is warranted to elucidate underlying mechanisms that may impact clinical care.

New loci associated with kidney function and chronic kidney disease (Article)

2010-05-01T00:00:00Z

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a significant public health problem, and recent genetic studies have identified common CKD susceptibility variants. The CKDGen consortium performed a meta-analysis of genome-wide association data in 67,093 individuals of European ancestry from 20 predominantly population-based studies in order to identify new susceptibility loci for reduced renal function as estimated by serum creatinine (eGFRcrea), serum cystatin c (eGFRcys) and CKD (eGFRcrea 60 ml/min/1.73 m 2; n = 5,807 individuals with CKD (cases)). Follow-up of the 23 new genome-wide-significant loci (P 5 × 10 8) in 22,982 replication samples identified 13 new loci affecting renal function and CKD (in or near LASS2, GCKR, ALMS1, TFDP2, DAB2, SLC34A1, VEGFA, PRKAG2, PIP5K1B, ATXN2, DACH1, UBE2Q2 and SLC7A9) and 7 loci suspected to affect creatinine production and secretion (CPS1, SLC22A2, TMEM60, WDR37, SLC6A13, WDR72 and BCAS3). These results further our understanding of the biologic mechanisms of kidney function by identifying loci that potentially influence nephrogenesis, podocyte function, angiogenesis, solute transport and metabolic functions of the kidney.

Clear detection of ADIPOQ locus as the major gene for plasma adiponectin: Results of genome-wide association analyses including 4659 European individuals (Article)

2010-02-01T00:00:00Z

Objective: Plasma adiponectin is strongly associated with various components of metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular outcomes. Concentrations are highly heritable and differ between men and women. We therefore aimed to investigate the genetics of plasma adiponectin in men and women. Methods: We combined genome-wide association scans of three population-based studies including 4659 persons. For the replication stage in 13795 subjects, we selected the 20 top signals of the combined analysis, as well as the 10 top signals with p-values less than 1.0 × 10-4for each the men- and the women-specific analyses. We further selected 73 SNPs that were consistently associated with metabolic syndrome parameters in previous genome-wide association studies to check for their association with plasma adiponectin. Results: The ADIPOQ locus showed genome-wide significant p-values in the combined (p = 4.3 × 10-24) as well as in both women- and men-specific analyses (p = 8.7 × 10-17and p = 2.5 × 10-11, respectively). None of the other 39 top signal SNPs showed evidence for association in the replication analysis. None of 73 SNPs from metabolic syndrome loci exhibited association with plasma adiponectin (p > 0.01). Conclusions: We demonstrated the ADIPOQ gene as the only major gene for plasma adiponectin, which explains 6.7% of the phenotypic variance. We further found that neither this gene nor any of the metabolic syndrome loci explained the sex differences observed for plasma adiponectin. Larger studies are needed to identify more moderate genetic determinants of plasma adiponectin.