scholarly journals Parent-of-origin effects in the UK Biobank

Author(s):  
Olivier Delaneau ◽  
Robin Hofmeister ◽  
Simone Rubinacci ◽  
Diogo Ribeiro ◽  
Zoltan Kutalik ◽  
...  

Abstract Identical genetic variations can have different phenotypic effects depending on their parent of origin (PofO). Yet, studies focussing on PofO effects have been largely limited in terms of sample size due to the need of parental genomes or known genealogies. Here, we used a novel probabilistic approach to infer PofO of individual alleles in the UK Biobank that does not require parental genomes nor prior knowledge of genealogy. Our model uses Identity-By-Descent (IBD) sharing with second- and third-degree relatives to assign alleles to parental groups and leverages chromosome X data in males to distinguish maternal from paternal groups. When combined with robust haplotype inference and haploid imputation, this allowed us to infer the PofO at 5.4 million variants genome-wide for 26,393 UK Biobank individuals. We used this large dataset to systematically screen 59 biomarkers and 38 anthropomorphic phenotypes for PofO effects and discovered 101 significant associations, demonstrating that this type of effects is widespread. Notably, we retrieved well known PofO effects, such as the MEG3/DLK1 locus on platelet count, and we discovered many new ones often at loci outside currently known imprinted regions and previously thought to harbour additive associations, implying that the underlying molecular mechanisms may be more complex than expected.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin J Hofmeister ◽  
Simone Rubinacci ◽  
Diogo M Ribeiro ◽  
Zoltan Kutalik ◽  
Alfonso Buil ◽  
...  

Identical genetic variations can have different phenotypic effects depending on their parent of origin (PofO). Yet, studies focussing on PofO effects have been largely limited in terms of sample size due to the need of parental genomes or known genealogies. Here, we used a novel probabilistic approach to infer PofO of individual alleles in the UK Biobank that does not require parental genomes nor prior knowledge of genealogy. Our model uses Identity-By-Descent (IBD) sharing with second- and third-degree relatives to assign alleles to parental groups and leverages chromosome X data in males to distinguish maternal from paternal groups. When combined with robust haplotype inference and haploid imputation, this allowed us to infer the PofO at 5.4 million variants genome-wide for 26,393 UK Biobank individuals. We used this large dataset to systematically screen 59 biomarkers and 38 anthropomorphic phenotypes for PofO effects and discovered 101 significant associations, demonstrating that this type of effects contributes to the genetics of complex traits. Notably, we retrieved well known PofO effects, such as the MEG3/DLK1 locus on platelet count, and we discovered many new ones at loci often unsuspected of being imprinted and, in some cases, previously thought to harbour additive associations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena R. R. Wells ◽  
Fatin N. Zainul Abidin ◽  
Maxim B. Freidin ◽  
Frances M. K. Williams ◽  
Sally J. Dawson

AbstractTinnitus is a prevalent condition in which perception of sound occurs without an external stimulus. It is often associated with pre-existing hearing loss or noise-induced damage to the auditory system. In some individuals it occurs frequently or even continuously and leads to considerable distress and difficulty sleeping. There is little knowledge of the molecular mechanisms involved in tinnitus which has hindered the development of treatments. Evidence suggests that tinnitus has a heritable component although previous genetic studies have not established specific risk factors. From a total of 172,608 UK Biobank participants who answered questions on tinnitus we performed a case–control genome-wide association study for self-reported tinnitus. Final sample size used in association analysis was N = 91,424. Three variants in close proximity to the RCOR1 gene reached genome wide significance: rs4906228 (p = 1.7E−08), rs4900545 (p = 1.8E−08) and 14:103042287_CT_C (p = 3.50E−08). RCOR1 encodes REST Corepressor 1, a component of a co-repressor complex involved in repressing neuronal gene expression in non-neuronal cells. Eleven other independent genetic loci reached a suggestive significance threshold of p < 1E−06.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan S Palmer ◽  
Wei Zhou ◽  
Liam Abbott ◽  
Nik Baya ◽  
Claire Churchhouse ◽  
...  

In classical statistical genetic theory, a dominance effect is defined as the deviation from a purely additive genetic effect for a biallelic variant. Dominance effects are well documented in model organisms. However, evidence in humans is limited to a handful of traits, particularly those with strong single locus effects such as hair color. We carried out the largest systematic evaluation of dominance effects on phenotypic variance in the UK Biobank. We curated and tested over 1,000 phenotypes for dominance effects through GWAS scans, identifying 175 loci at genome-wide significance correcting for multiple testing (P < 4.7 × 10-11). Power to detect non-additive loci is much lower than power to detect additive effects for complex traits: based on the relative effect sizes at genome-wide significant additive loci, we estimate a factor of 20-30 increase in sample size will be necessary to capture clear evidence of dominance similar to those currently observed for additive effects. However, these localised dominance hits do not extend to a significant aggregate contribution to phenotypic variance genome-wide. By deriving a version of LD-score regression to detect dominance effects tagged by common variation genome-wide (minor allele frequency > 0.05), we found no strong evidence of a contribution to phenotypic variance when accounting for multiple testing. Across the 267 continuous and 793 binary traits the median contribution was 5.73 × 10-4, with unbiased point estimates ranging from -0.261 to 0.131. Finally, we introduce dominance fine-mapping to explore whether the more rapid decay of dominance LD can be leveraged to find causal variants. These results provide the most comprehensive assessment of dominance trait variation in humans to date.


Author(s):  
Jack W. O’Sullivan ◽  
John P. A. Ioannidis

AbstractWith the establishment of large biobanks, discovery of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) that are associated with various phenotypes has been accelerated. An open question is whether SNPs identified with genome-wide significance in earlier genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are replicated also in later GWAS conducted in biobanks. To address this question, the authors examined a publicly available GWAS database and identified two, independent GWAS on the same phenotype (an earlier, “discovery” GWAS and a later, replication GWAS done in the UK biobank). The analysis evaluated 136,318,924 SNPs (of which 6,289 had reached p<5e-8 in the discovery GWAS) from 4,397,962 participants across nine phenotypes. The overall replication rate was 85.0% and it was lower for binary than for quantitative phenotypes (58.1% versus 94.8% respectively). There was a18.0% decrease in SNP effect size for binary phenotypes, but a 12.0% increase for quantitative phenotypes. Using the discovery SNP effect size, phenotype trait (binary or quantitative), and discovery p-value, we built and validated a model that predicted SNP replication with area under the Receiver Operator Curve = 0.90. While non-replication may often reflect lack of power rather than genuine false-positive findings, these results provide insights about which discovered associations are likely to be seen again across subsequent GWAS.


Author(s):  
Mengyao Yu ◽  
Sergiy Kyryachenko ◽  
Stephanie Debette ◽  
Philippe Amouyel ◽  
Jean-Jacques Schott ◽  
...  

Background: Mitral valve prolapse (MVP) is a common cardiac valve disease, which affects 1 in 40 in the general population. Previous genome-wide association study have identified 6 risk loci for MVP. But these loci explained only partially the genetic risk for MVP. We aim to identify additional risk loci for MVP by adding data set from the UK Biobank. Methods: We reanalyzed 1007/479 cases from the MVP-France study, 1469/862 controls from the MVP-Nantes study for reimputation genotypes using HRC and TOPMed panels. We also incorporated 434 MVP cases and 4527 controls from the UK Biobank for discovery analyses. Genetic association was conducted using SNPTEST and meta-analyses using METAL. We used FUMA for post-genome-wide association study annotations and MAGMA for gene-based and gene-set analyses. Results: We found TOPMed imputation to perform better in terms of accuracy in the lower ranges of minor allele frequency below 0.1. Our updated meta-analysis included UK Biobank study for ≈8 million common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (minor allele frequency >0.01) and replicated the association on Chr2 as the top association signal near TNS1 . We identified an additional risk locus on Chr1 ( SYT2 ) and 2 suggestive risk loci on chr8 ( MSRA ) and chr19 ( FBXO46 ), all driven by common variants. Gene-based association using MAGMA revealed 6 risk genes for MVP with pronounced expression levels in cardiovascular tissues, especially the heart and globally part of enriched GO terms related to cardiac development. Conclusions: We report an updated meta-analysis genome-wide association study for MVP using dense imputation coverage and an improved case-control sample. We describe several loci and genes with MVP spanning biological mechanisms highly relevant to MVP, especially during valve and heart development.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ada Admin ◽  
Yann C. Klimentidis ◽  
Amit Arora ◽  
Michelle Newell ◽  
Jin Zhou ◽  
...  

Although hyperlipidemia is traditionally considered a risk factor for type-2 diabetes (T2D), evidence has emerged from statin trials and candidate gene investigations suggesting that lower LDL-C increases T2D risk. We thus sought to more comprehensively examine the phenotypic and genotypic relationships of LDL-C with T2D. Using data from the UK Biobank, we found that levels of circulating LDL-C were negatively associated with T2D prevalence (OR=0.41[0.39, 0.43] per mmol/L unit of LDL-C), despite positive associations of circulating LDL-C with HbA1c and BMI. We then performed the first genome-wide exploration of variants simultaneously associated with lower circulating LDL-C and increased T2D risk, using data on LDL-C from the UK Biobank (n=431,167) and the GLGC consortium (n=188,577), and T2D from the DIAGRAM consortium (n=898,130). We identified 31 loci associated with lower circulating LDL-C and increased T2D, capturing several potential mechanisms. Seven of these loci have previously been identified for this dual phenotype, and 9 have previously been implicated in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. These findings extend our current understanding of the higher T2D risk among individuals with low circulating LDL-C, and of the underlying mechanisms, including those responsible for the diabetogenic effect of LDL-C-lowering medications.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Åsa Johansson ◽  
Mathias Rask-Andersen ◽  
Torgny Karlsson ◽  
Weronica E. Ek

AbstractEven though heritability estimates suggest that the risk of asthma, hay fever and eczema is largely due to genetic factors, previous studies have not explained a large part of the genetics behind these diseases. In this GWA study, we include 346,545 Caucasians from the UK Biobank to identify novel loci for asthma, hay fever and eczema. We further investigate if associated lead SNPs have a significantly larger effect for one disease compared to the other diseases, to highlight possible disease specific effects.We identified 141 loci, of which 41 are novel, to be associated (P≤3×10−8) with asthma, hay fever or eczema, analysed separately or as disease phenotypes that includes the presence of different combinations of these diseases. The largest number of loci were associated with the combined phenotype (asthma/hay fever/eczema). However, as many as 20 loci had a significantly larger effect on hay fever/eczema-only compared to their effects on asthma, while 26 loci exhibited larger effects on asthma compared with their effects on hay fever/eczema. At four of the novel loci, TNFRSF8, MYRF, TSPAN8, and BHMG1, the lead SNPs were in LD (> 0.8) with potentially casual missense variants.Our study shows that a large amount of the genetic contribution is shared between the diseases. Nonetheless, a number of SNPs have a significantly larger effect on one of the phenotypes suggesting that part of the genetic contribution is more phenotype specific. Identified loci and probable causal genes may in the future be used as targets for treatments of asthma, hay fever and eczema.


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