Vitamin D is a steroid hormone precursor that is associated with a range of human traits and diseases. Previous GWAS of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations have identified four genome-wide significant loci (GC, NADSYN1/DHCR7, CYP2R1, CYP24A1). In this study, we expand the previous SUNLIGHT Consortium GWAS discovery sample size from 16,125 to 79,366 (all European descent). This larger GWAS yields two additional loci harboring genome-wide significant variants (P = 4.7×10-9 at rs8018720 in SEC23A, and P = 1.9×10-14 at rs10745742 in AMDHD1). The overall estimate of heritability of 25-hydroxyvitamin D serum concentrations attributable to GWAS common SNPs is 7.5%, with statistically significant loci explaining 38% of this total. Further investigation identifies signal enrichment in immune and hematopoietic tissues, and clustering with autoimmune diseases in cell-type-specific analysis. Larger studies are required to identify additional common SNPs, and to explore the role of rare or structural variants and gene-gene interactions in the heritability of circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels.

doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02662-2, hdl.handle.net/1765/104479
Nature Communications
Erasmus MC: University Medical Center Rotterdam

Jiang, X. (Xia), O'Reilly, P., Aschard, H., Hsu, Y.-H. (Yi-Hsiang), Richards, J.B. (J. Brent), Dupuis, J., … Kiel, D. P. (2018). Genome-wide association study in 79,366 European-ancestry individuals informs the genetic architecture of 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. Nature Communications, 9(1). doi:10.1038/s41467-017-02662-2