scholarly journals Recessive effects in cancer predisposition exposed by genome-wide and proteome-wide association studies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadav Brandes ◽  
Nathan Linial ◽  
Michal Linial

AbstractThe characterization of germline genetic variation affecting cancer risk, known as cancer predisposition, is fundamental to preventive and personalized medicine. Current attempts to detect cancer predisposition genomic regions are typically based on small-scale familial studies or genome-wide association studies (GWAS) over dedicated case-control cohorts. In this study, we utilized the UK Biobank as a large-scale prospective cohort to conduct a comprehensive analysis of cancer predisposition using both GWAS and proteome-wide association study (PWAS), a method that highlights genetic associations mediated by functional alterations to protein-coding genes. We discovered 137 unique genomic loci implicated with cancer risk in the white British population across nine cancer types and pan-cancer. While most of these genomic regions are supported by external evidence, our results highlight novel loci as well. We performed a comparative analysis of cancer predisposition between cancer types, finding that most of the implicated regions are cancer-type specific. We further analyzed the role of recessive genetic effects in cancer predisposition. We found that 30 of the 137 cancer regions were recovered only by a recessive model, highlighting the importance of recessive inheritance outside of familial studies. Finally, we show that many of the cancer associations exert substantial cancer risk in the studied cohort, suggesting their clinical relevance.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadav Brandes ◽  
Nathan Linial ◽  
Michal Linial

AbstractThe characterization of germline genetic variation affecting cancer risk, known as cancer predisposition, is fundamental to preventive and personalized medicine. Studies of genetic cancer predisposition typically identify significant genomic regions based on family-based cohorts or genome-wide association studies (GWAS). However, the results of such studies rarely provide biological insight or functional interpretation. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of cancer predisposition in the UK Biobank cohort using a new gene-based method for detecting protein-coding genes that are functionally interpretable. Specifically, we conducted proteome-wide association studies (PWAS) to identify genetic associations mediated by alterations to protein function. With PWAS, we identified 110 significant gene-cancer associations in 70 unique genomic regions across nine cancer types and pan-cancer. In 48 of the 110 PWAS associations (44%), estimated gene damage is associated with reduced rather than elevated cancer risk, suggesting a protective effect. Together with standard GWAS, we implicated 145 unique genomic loci with cancer risk. While most of these genomic regions are supported by external evidence, our results also highlight many novel loci. Based on the capacity of PWAS to detect non-additive genetic effects, we found that 46% of the PWAS-significant cancer regions exhibited exclusive recessive inheritance. These results highlight the importance of recessive genetic effects, without relying on familial studies. Finally, we show that many of the detected genes exert substantial cancer risk in the studied cohort determined by a quantitative functional description, suggesting their relevance for diagnosis and genetic consulting.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (14) ◽  
pp. 2512-2514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bongsong Kim ◽  
Xinbin Dai ◽  
Wenchao Zhang ◽  
Zhaohong Zhuang ◽  
Darlene L Sanchez ◽  
...  

Abstract Summary We present GWASpro, a high-performance web server for the analyses of large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS). GWASpro was developed to provide data analyses for large-scale molecular genetic data, coupled with complex replicated experimental designs such as found in plant science investigations and to overcome the steep learning curves of existing GWAS software tools. GWASpro supports building complex design matrices, by which complex experimental designs that may include replications, treatments, locations and times, can be accounted for in the linear mixed model. GWASpro is optimized to handle GWAS data that may consist of up to 10 million markers and 10 000 samples from replicable lines or hybrids. GWASpro provides an interface that significantly reduces the learning curve for new GWAS investigators. Availability and implementation GWASpro is freely available at https://bioinfo.noble.org/GWASPRO. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


2012 ◽  
Vol 215 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Homuth ◽  
Alexander Teumer ◽  
Uwe Völker ◽  
Matthias Nauck

The metabolome, defined as the reflection of metabolic dynamics derived from parameters measured primarily in easily accessible body fluids such as serum, plasma, and urine, can be considered as the omics data pool that is closest to the phenotype because it integrates genetic influences as well as nongenetic factors. Metabolic traits can be related to genetic polymorphisms in genome-wide association studies, enabling the identification of underlying genetic factors, as well as to specific phenotypes, resulting in the identification of metabolome signatures primarily caused by nongenetic factors. Similarly, correlation of metabolome data with transcriptional or/and proteome profiles of blood cells also produces valuable data, by revealing associations between metabolic changes and mRNA and protein levels. In the last years, the progress in correlating genetic variation and metabolome profiles was most impressive. This review will therefore try to summarize the most important of these studies and give an outlook on future developments.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doug Speed ◽  
David J Balding

LD Score Regression (LDSC) has been widely applied to the results of genome-wide association studies. However, its estimates of SNP heritability are derived from an unrealistic model in which each SNP is expected to contribute equal heritability. As a consequence, LDSC tends to over-estimate confounding bias, under-estimate the total phenotypic variation explained by SNPs, and provide misleading estimates of the heritability enrichment of SNP categories. Therefore, we present SumHer, software for estimating SNP heritability from summary statistics using more realistic heritability models. After demonstrating its superiority over LDSC, we apply SumHer to the results of 24 large-scale association studies (average sample size 121 000). First we show that these studies have tended to substantially over-correct for confounding, and as a result the number of genome-wide significant loci has under-reported by about 20%. Next we estimate enrichment for 24 categories of SNPs defined by functional annotations. A previous study using LDSC reported that conserved regions were 13-fold enriched, and found a further twelve categories with above 2-fold enrichment. By contrast, our analysis using SumHer finds that conserved regions are only 1.6-fold (SD 0.06) enriched, and that no category has enrichment above 1.7-fold. SumHer provides an improved understanding of the genetic architecture of complex traits, which enables more efficient analysis of future genetic data.


PLoS Genetics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. e1009315
Author(s):  
Ardalan Naseri ◽  
Junjie Shi ◽  
Xihong Lin ◽  
Shaojie Zhang ◽  
Degui Zhi

Inference of relationships from whole-genome genetic data of a cohort is a crucial prerequisite for genome-wide association studies. Typically, relationships are inferred by computing the kinship coefficients (ϕ) and the genome-wide probability of zero IBD sharing (π0) among all pairs of individuals. Current leading methods are based on pairwise comparisons, which may not scale up to very large cohorts (e.g., sample size >1 million). Here, we propose an efficient relationship inference method, RAFFI. RAFFI leverages the efficient RaPID method to call IBD segments first, then estimate the ϕ and π0 from detected IBD segments. This inference is achieved by a data-driven approach that adjusts the estimation based on phasing quality and genotyping quality. Using simulations, we showed that RAFFI is robust against phasing/genotyping errors, admix events, and varying marker densities, and achieves higher accuracy compared to KING, the current leading method, especially for more distant relatives. When applied to the phased UK Biobank data with ~500K individuals, RAFFI is approximately 18 times faster than KING. We expect RAFFI will offer fast and accurate relatedness inference for even larger cohorts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vinutha Kanuganahalli Somegowda ◽  
Laavanya Rayaprolu ◽  
Abhishek Rathore ◽  
Santosh Pandurang Deshpande ◽  
Rajeev Gupta

: The main focus of this review is to discuss the current status of the use of GWAS for fodder quality and biofuel owing to its similarity of traits. Sorghum is a potential multipurpose crop, popularly cultivated for various uses as food, feed fodder, and biomass for ethanol. Production of a huge quantity of biomass and genetic variation for complex sugars are the main motivation not only to use sorghum as fodder for livestock nutritionists but also a potential candidate for biofuel generation. Few studies have been reported on the knowledge transfer that can be used from the development of biofuel technologies to complement improved fodder quality and vice versa. With recent advances in genotyping technologies, GWAS became one of the primary tools used to identify the genes/genomic regions associated with the phenotype. These modern tools and technologies accelerate the genomic assisted breeding process to enhance the rate of genetic gains. Hence, this mini-review focuses on GWAS studies on genetic architecture and dissection of traits underpinning fodder quality and biofuel traits and their limited comparison with other related model crop species.


2020 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 413-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin K. Silverman

Although chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) risk is strongly influenced by cigarette smoking, genetic factors are also important determinants of COPD. In addition to Mendelian syndromes such as alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, many genomic regions that influence COPD susceptibility have been identified in genome-wide association studies. Similarly, multiple genomic regions associated with COPD-related phenotypes, such as quantitative emphysema measures, have been found. Identifying the functional variants and key genes within these association regions remains a major challenge. However, newly identified COPD susceptibility genes are already providing novel insights into COPD pathogenesis. Network-based approaches that leverage these genetic discoveries have the potential to assist in decoding the complex genetic architecture of COPD.


Author(s):  
Anne Hinks ◽  
Wendy Thomson

Juvenile rheumatic diseases are heterogeneous, complex genetic diseases; to date only juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) has been extensively studied in terms of identifying genetic risk factors. The MHC region is a well-established risk factor but in the last few years candidate gene and large-scale genome-wide association studies have been utilized in the search for non-HLA risk factors. There are now 17 JIA susceptibility loci which reach the genome-wide significance threshold for association and a further 7 regions with evidence for association in more than one study. In addition, some subtype-specific associations are emerging. These risk loci now need to be investigated further using fine-mapping strategies and then appropriate functional studies to show how the variant alters the gene function. This knowledge will not only lead to a better understanding of disease pathogenesis for juvenile rheumatic diseases but may also aid in the classification of these heterogeneous diseases. It may identify new pathways for potential therapeutic targets and help in the prediction of disease outcome and response to treatment.


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