scholarly journals Pig genome functional annotation enhances the biological interpretation of complex traits and human disease

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhangyuan Pan ◽  
Yuelin Yao ◽  
Hongwei Yin ◽  
Zexi Cai ◽  
Ying Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Evolution ◽  
Complex Traits ◽  
Functional Annotation ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Regulatory Elements ◽  
Neutral Evolution ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Tissue Specific ◽  
Slow Evolution

AbstractThe functional annotation of livestock genomes is crucial for understanding the molecular mechanisms that underpin complex traits of economic importance, adaptive evolution and comparative genomics. Here, we provide the most comprehensive catalogue to date of regulatory elements in the pig (Sus scrofa) by integrating 223 epigenomic and transcriptomic data sets, representing 14 biologically important tissues. We systematically describe the dynamic epigenetic landscape across tissues by functionally annotating 15 different chromatin states and defining their tissue-specific regulatory activities. We demonstrate that genomic variants associated with complex traits and adaptive evolution in pig are significantly enriched in active promoters and enhancers. Furthermore, we reveal distinct tissue-specific regulatory selection between Asian and European pig domestication processes. Compared with human and mouse epigenomes, we show that porcine regulatory elements are more conserved in DNA sequence, under both rapid and slow evolution, than those under neutral evolution across pig, mouse, and human. Finally, we provide biological insights on tissue-specific regulatory conservation, and by integrating 47 human genome-wide association studies, we demonstrate that, depending on the traits, mouse or pig might be more appropriate biomedical models for different complex traits and diseases.

scholarly journals Pig genome functional annotation enhances biological interpretations of complex traits and comparative epigenomics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huaijun Zhou ◽  
Zhangyuan Pan ◽  
Yuelin Yao ◽  
Hongwei Ying ◽  
Zexi Cai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Evolution ◽  
Complex Traits ◽  
Functional Annotation ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Regulatory Elements ◽  
Neutral Evolution ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Tissue Specific ◽  
Slow Evolution

Abstract The functional annotation of livestock genomes is crucial for understanding the molecular mechanisms that underpin complex traits of economic importance, adaptive evolution and comparative genomics. Here, we provide the most comprehensive catalogue to date of regulatory elements in the pig (Sus scrofa) by integrating 223 epigenomic and transcriptomic data sets, representing 14 biologically important tissues. We systematically describe the dynamic epigenetic landscape across tissues by functionally annotating 15 different chromatin states and defining their tissue-specific regulatory activities. We demonstrate that genomic variants associated with complex traits and adaptive evolution in pig are significantly enriched in active promoters and enhancers. Furthermore, we reveal distinct tissue-specific regulatory selection between Asian and European pig domestication processes. Compared with human and mouse epigenomes, we show that porcine regulatory elements are more conserved in DNA sequence, under both rapid and slow evolution, than those under neutral evolution across pig, mouse, and human. Finally, we provide novel biological insights on tissue-specific regulatory conservation and demonstrate that, depending on the traits, mouse or pig might be more appropriate biomedical models for different complex traits and diseases in humans through integrating comparative epigenomes with 47 human genome-wide association studies.

scholarly journals A transcriptome-wide Mendelian randomization study to uncover tissue-dependent regulatory mechanisms across the human phenome

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom G Richardson ◽  
Gibran Hemani ◽  
Tom R Gaunt ◽  
Caroline L Relton ◽  
George Davey Smith
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Genetic Variants ◽  
Complex Traits ◽  
Mendelian Randomization ◽  
Drug Repositioning ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Thyroid Tissue ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Tissue Specific ◽  
Genome Wide

AbstractBackgroundDeveloping insight into tissue-specific transcriptional mechanisms can help improve our understanding of how genetic variants exert their effects on complex traits and disease. By applying the principles of Mendelian randomization, we have undertaken a systematic analysis to evaluate transcriptome-wide associations between gene expression across 48 different tissue types and 395 complex traits.ResultsOverall, we identified 100,025 gene-trait associations based on conventional genome-wide corrections (P < 5 × 10−08) that also provided evidence of genetic colocalization. These results indicated that genetic variants which influence gene expression levels in multiple tissues are more likely to influence multiple complex traits. We identified many examples of tissue-specific effects, such as genetically-predicted TPO, NR3C2 and SPATA13 expression only associating with thyroid disease in thyroid tissue. Additionally, FBN2 expression was associated with both cardiovascular and lung function traits, but only when analysed in heart and lung tissue respectively.We also demonstrate that conducting phenome-wide evaluations of our results can help flag adverse on-target side effects for therapeutic intervention, as well as propose drug repositioning opportunities. Moreover, we find that exploring the tissue-dependency of associations identified by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) can help elucidate the causal genes and tissues responsible for effects, as well as uncover putative novel associations.ConclusionsThe atlas of tissue-dependent associations we have constructed should prove extremely valuable to future studies investigating the genetic determinants of complex disease. The follow-up analyses we have performed in this study are merely a guide for future research. Conducting similar evaluations can be undertaken systematically at http://mrcieu.mrsoftware.org/Tissue_MR_atlas/.

scholarly journals Estimating heritability and its enrichment in tissue-specific gene sets in admixed populations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Luo ◽  
Xinyi Li ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Steven Gazal ◽  
Josep Maria Mercader ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Complex Traits ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Genetic Data ◽  
Age At Menarche ◽  
Specific Gene ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Diverse Populations ◽  
Tissue Specific ◽  
Different Populations

AbstractThe increasing size and diversity of genome-wide association studies provide an exciting opportunity to study how the genetics of complex traits vary among diverse populations. Here, we introduce covariate-adjusted LD score regression (cov-LDSC), a method to accurately estimate genetic heritability and its enrichment in both homogenous and admixed populations with summary statistics and in-sample LD estimates. In-sample LD can be estimated from a subset of the GWAS samples, allowing our method to be applied efficiently to very large cohorts. In simulations, we show that unadjusted LDSC underestimates by 10% − 60% in admixed populations; in contrast, cov-LDSC is robust to all simulation parameters. We apply cov-LDSC to genotyping data from approximately 170,000 Latino, 47,000 African American and 135,000 European individuals. We estimate and detect heritability enrichment in three quantitative and five dichotomous phenotypes respectively, making this, to our knowledge, the most comprehensive heritability-based analysis of admixed individuals. Our results show that most traits have high concordance of and consistent tissue-specific heritability enrichment among different populations. However, for age at menarche, we observe population-specific heritability estimates of . We observe consistent patterns of tissue-specific heritability enrichment across populations; for example, in the limbic system for BMI, the per-standardized-annotation effect size τ* is 0.16 ± 0.04, 0.28 ± 0.11 and 0.18 ± 0.03 in Latino, African American and European populations respectively. Our results demonstrate that our approach is a powerful way to analyze genetic data for complex traits from underrepresented populations.Author summaryAdmixed populations such as African Americans and Hispanic Americans bear a disproportionately high burden of disease but remain underrepresented in current genetic studies. It is important to extend current methodological advancements for understanding the genetic basis of complex traits in homogeneous populations to individuals with admixed genetic backgrounds. Here, we develop a computationally efficient method to answer two specific questions. First, does genetic variation contribute to the same amount of phenotypic variation (heritability) across diverse populations? Second, are the genetic mechanisms shared among different populations? To answer these questions, we use our novel method to conduct the first comprehensive heritability-based analysis of a large number of admixed individuals. We show that there is a high degree of concordance in total heritability and tissue-specific enrichment between different ancestral groups. However, traits such as age at menarche show a noticeable differences among populations. Our work provides a powerful way to analyze genetic data in admixed populations and may contribute to the applicability of genomic medicine to admixed population groups.

scholarly journals A global overview of pleiotropy and genetic architecture in complex traits

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyoko Watanabe ◽  
Sven Stringer ◽  
Oleksandr Frei ◽  
Maša Umićević Mirkov ◽  
Tinca J.C. Polderman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variants ◽  
Complex Traits ◽  
Genetic Architecture ◽  
Human Genetics ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Regulatory Elements ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Multiple Trait ◽  
Current Availability ◽  
Flanking Regions

ABSTRACTAfter a decade of genome-wide association studies (GWASs), fundamental questions in human genetics are still unanswered, such as the extent of pleiotropy across the genome, the nature of trait-associated genetic variants and the disparate genetic architecture across human traits. The current availability of hundreds of GWAS results provide the unique opportunity to gain insight into these questions. In this study, we harmonized and systematically analysed 4,155 publicly available GWASs. For a subset of well-powered GWAS on 558 unique traits, we provide an extensive overview of pleiotropy and genetic architecture. We show that trait associated loci cover more than half of the genome, and 90% of those loci are associated with multiple trait domains. We further show that potential causal genetic variants are enriched in coding and flanking regions, as well as in regulatory elements, and how trait-polygenicity is related to an estimate of the required sample size to detect 90% of causal genetic variants. Our results provide novel insights into how genetic variation contributes to trait variation. All GWAS results can be queried and visualized at the GWAS ATLAS resource (http://atlas.ctglab.nl).

Brain imaging genomics: influences of genomic variability on the structure and function of the human brain

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-56
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Mühleisen ◽  
Andreas J. Forstner ◽  
Per Hoffmann ◽  
Sven Cichon
Keyword(s):  
Brain Imaging ◽  
Complex Traits ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Phenotypic Variability ◽  
Effect Sizes ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Environment Interaction ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Imaging Genomics

Abstract Brain imaging genomics is an emerging discipline in which genomic and brain imaging data are integrated in order to elucidate the molecular mechanisms that underly brain phenotypes and diseases, including neuropsychiatric disorders. As with all genetic analyses of complex traits and diseases, brain imaging genomics has evolved from small, individual candidate gene investigations towards large, collaborative genome-wide association studies. Recent investigations, mostly population-based, have studied well-powered cohorts comprising tens of thousands of individuals and identified multiple robust associations of single-nucleotide polymorphisms and copy number variants with structural and functional brain phenotypes. Such systematic genomic screens of millions of genetic variants have generated initial insights into the genetic architecture of brain phenotypes and demonstrated that their etiology is polygenic in nature, involving multiple common variants with small effect sizes and rare variants with larger effect sizes. Ongoing international collaborative initiatives are now working to obtain a more complete picture of the underlying biology. As in other complex phenotypes, novel approaches – such as gene–gene interaction, gene–environment interaction, and epigenetic analyses – are being implemented in order to investigate their contribution to the observed phenotypic variability. An important consideration for future research will be the translation of brain imaging genomics findings into clinical practice.

scholarly journals p63 establishes epithelial enhancers at critical craniofacial development genes

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. eaaw0946 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique Lin-Shiao ◽  
Yemin Lan ◽  
Julia Welzenbach ◽  
Katherine A. Alexander ◽  
Zhen Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cleft Lip ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Point Mutations ◽  
Regulatory Elements ◽  
Craniofacial Development ◽  
Developmental Defect ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Interaction Domain ◽  
Developmental Defects

The transcription factor p63 is a key mediator of epidermal development. Point mutations in p63 in patients lead to developmental defects, including orofacial clefting. To date, knowledge on how pivotal the role of p63 is in human craniofacial development is limited. Using an inducible transdifferentiation model, combined with epigenomic sequencing and multicohort meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies data, we show that p63 establishes enhancers at craniofacial development genes to modulate their transcription. Disease-specific substitution mutation in the DNA binding domain or sterile alpha motif protein interaction domain of p63, respectively, eliminates or reduces establishment of these enhancers. We show that enhancers established by p63 are highly enriched for single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with nonsyndromic cleft lip ± cleft palate (CL/P). These orthogonal approaches indicate a strong molecular link between p63 enhancer function and CL/P, illuminating molecular mechanisms underlying this developmental defect and revealing vital regulatory elements and new candidate causative genes.

scholarly journals Sexual differences in genetic architecture in UK Biobank

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Bernabeu ◽  
Oriol Canela-Xandri ◽  
Konrad Rawlik ◽  
Andrea Talenti ◽  
James Prendergast ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Dimorphism ◽  
Complex Traits ◽  
Genetic Architecture ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Mammalian Species ◽  
Genetic Correlations ◽  
European Ancestry ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Uk Biobank

ABSTRACTSex is arguably the most important differentiating characteristic in most mammalian species, separating populations into different groups, with varying behaviors, morphologies, and physiologies based on their complement of sex chromosomes. In humans, despite males and females sharing nearly identical genomes, there are differences between the sexes in complex traits and in the risk of a wide array of diseases. Gene by sex interactions (GxS) are thought to account for some of this sexual dimorphism. However, the extent and basis of these interactions are poorly understood.Here we provide insights into both the scope and mechanism of GxS across the genome of circa 450,000 individuals of European ancestry and 530 complex traits in the UK Biobank. We found small yet widespread differences in genetic architecture across traits through the calculation of sex-specific heritability, genetic correlations, and sex-stratified genome-wide association studies (GWAS). We also found that, in some cases, sex-agnostic GWAS efforts might be missing loci of interest, and looked into possible improvements in the prediction of high-level phenotypes. Finally, we studied the potential functional role of the dimorphism observed through sex-biased eQTL and gene-level analyses.This study marks a broad examination of the genetics of sexual dimorphism. Our findings parallel previous reports, suggesting the presence of sexual genetic heterogeneity across complex traits of generally modest magnitude. Our results suggest the need to consider sex-stratified analyses for future studies in order to shed light into possible sex-specific molecular mechanisms.

scholarly journals Fine mapping with epigenetic information and 3D structure

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gisela Orozco
Keyword(s):  
Complex Traits ◽  
Drug Targets ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
3D Structure ◽  
Improve Patient Care ◽  
Regulatory Elements ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Functional Interpretation ◽  
Risk Variants ◽  
Increase Risk

AbstractSince 2005, thousands of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been published, identifying hundreds of thousands of genetic variants that increase risk of complex traits such as autoimmune diseases. This wealth of data has the potential to improve patient care, through personalized medicine and the identification of novel drug targets. However, the potential of GWAS for clinical translation has not been fully achieved yet, due to the fact that the functional interpretation of risk variants and the identification of causal variants and genes are challenging. The past decade has seen the development of great advances that are facilitating the overcoming of these limitations, by utilizing a plethora of genomics and epigenomics tools to map and characterize regulatory elements and chromatin interactions, which can be used to fine map GWAS loci, and advance our understanding of the biological mechanisms that cause disease.

scholarly journals Tissue-specific multiOMICs analysis of atrial fibrillation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ines Assum ◽  
Julia Krause ◽  
Markus O. Scheinhardt ◽  
Christian Müller ◽  
Elke Hammer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atrial Fibrillation ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Association Studies ◽  
Molecular Networks ◽  
Risk Scores ◽  
Genome Wide Association Studies ◽  
Tissue Specific ◽  
Protein Levels ◽  
Atrial Tissue ◽  
Regulatory Variants

AbstractGenome-wide association studies (GWAS) for atrial fibrillation (AF) have uncovered numerous disease-associated variants. Their underlying molecular mechanisms, especially consequences for mRNA and protein expression remain largely elusive. Thus, novel multiOMICs approaches are needed for deciphering the underlying molecular networks. Here, we integrated genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics of human atrial tissue which allowed for identifying widespread effects of genetic variants on both transcript (cis eQTL) and protein (cis pQTL) abundance. We further established a novel targeted trans QTL approach based on polygenic risk scores to identify candidates for AF core genes. Using this approach, we identified two trans eQTLs and four trans pQTLs for AF GWAS hits, and elucidated the role of the transcription factor NKX2-5 as a link between the GWAS SNP rs9481842 and AF. Altogether, we present an integrative multiOMICs method to uncover trans-acting networks in small datasets and provide a rich resource of atrial tissue-specific regulatory variants for transcript and protein levels for cardiovascular disease gene prioritization.

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