Search

Introduction: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) represent a heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental disorders with strong genetic predispositions. Although an increasing number of genetic variants have been implicated in the pathogenesis of ASD, little is known about the relationship between ASDassociated genetic variants and individual ASD traits. Therefore, we aimed to investigate these relationships. Methods: Here, we report a case-control association study of 32 Japanese children with ASD (mainly with high-functioning autism [HFA]) and 36 with typical development (TD). We explored previously established ASD-associated genes using a next-generation sequencing panel and determined the association between Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) T-scores and intelligence quotient (IQ) scores. Results: In the genotype-phenotype analyses, 40 variants of five genes (SCN1A, SHANK3, DYRK1A, CADPS, and SCN2A) were associated with ASD/TD phenotypes. In particular, 10 SCN1A variants passed permutation filtering (false discovery rate <0.05). In the quantitative association analyses, 49 variants of 12 genes (CHD8, SCN1A, SLC6A1, KMT5B, CNTNAP2, KCNQ3, SCN2A, ARID1B, SHANK3, DYRK1A, FOXP1, and GRIN2B) and 50 variants of 10 genes (DYRK1A, SCN2A, SLC6A1, ARID1B, CNTNAP2, SHANK3, FOXP1, PTEN, SCN1A, and CHD8) were associated with SRS T- and IQ-scores, respectively. Conclusion: Our data suggest that these identified variants are essential for the genetic architecture of HFA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Rare disorders comprise of ~ 7500 different conditions affecting multiple systems. Diagnosis of rare diseases is complex due to dearth of specialized medical professionals, testing labs and limited therapeutic options. There is scarcity of data on the prevalence of rare diseases in different populations. India being home to a large population comprising of 4600 population groups, of which several thousand are endogamous, is likely to have a high burden of rare diseases. The present study provides a retrospective overview of a cohort of patients with rare genetic diseases identified at a tertiary genetic test centre in India. Results: Overall, 3294 patients with 305 rare diseases were identified in the present study cohort. These were categorized into 14 disease groups based on the major organ/ organ system affected. Highest number of rare diseases (D = 149/305, 48.9%) were identified in the neuromuscular and neurodevelopmental (NMND) group followed by inborn errors of metabolism (IEM) (D = 47/305; 15.4%). Majority patients in the present cohort (N = 1992, 61%) were diagnosed under IEM group, of which Gaucher disease constituted maximum cases (N = 224, 11.2%). Under the NMND group, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (N = 291/885, 32.9%), trinucleotide repeat expansion disorders (N = 242/885; 27.3%) and spinal muscular atrophy (N = 141/885, 15.9%) were the most common. Majority cases of β-thalassemia (N = 120/149, 80.5%) and cystic fibrosis (N = 74/75, 98.7%) under the haematological and pulmonary groups were observed, respectively. Founder variants were identified for Tay-Sachs disease and mucopolysaccharidosis IVA diseases. Recurrent variants for Gaucher disease (GBA:c.1448T > C), β-thalassemia (HBB:c.92.+5G > C), non-syndromic hearing loss (GJB2:c.71G > A), albinism (TYR:c.832 C > T), congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CYP21A2:c.29–13 C > G) and progressive pseudo rheumatoid dysplasia (CCN6:c.298T > A) were observed in the present study. Conclusion: The present retrospective study of rare disease patients diagnosed at a tertiary genetic test centre provides first insight into the distribution of rare genetic diseases across the country. This information will likely aid in drafting future health policies, including newborn screening programs, development of target specific panel for affordable diagnosis of rare diseases and eventually build a platform for devising novel treatment strategies for rare diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childhood eye cancers, although rare, present substantial health challenges, affecting the pediatric population with a remarkable impact on their lives and families. This comprehensive review provides insights into the various types of ocular tumors, primarily focusing on malignant eye tumors, their genetic predispositions, and advancements in managing these conditions. Understanding the genetic risk factors is crucial for early detection, risk assessment, and the development of targeted therapies. This review discusses genome-wide association (GWAS) and next-generation sequencing (NGS) studies to find common and rare genetic variants. Furthermore, it also explores the outcomes and implications of these genetic discoveries in treating pediatric ocular cancer. These findings underscore the significance of genetic research in guiding early interventions and improving outcomes in children with ocular cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a complex disease that is influenced by environmental and genetic factors. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between coding variants in lipid metabolism-related genes and CAD in a Chinese Han population. Methods A total of 252 individuals were recruited for this study, including 120 CAD patients and 132 healthy control individuals. Rare and common coding variants in 12 lipid metabolism-related genes (ANGPTL3, ANGPTL4, APOA1, APOA5, APOC1, APOC3, CETP, LDLR, LIPC, LPL, PCSK9 and SCARB1) were detected via next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based targeted sequencing. Associations between common variants and CAD were evaluated by Fisher’s exact test. A gene-based association test of rare variants was performed by the sequence kernel association test-optimal (SKAT-O test). Results We found 51 rare variants and 17 common variants in this study. One common missense variant, LIPC rs6083, was significantly associated with CAD after Bonferroni correction (OR = 0.47, 95% CI = 0.29–0.76, p = 1.9 × 10− 3). Thirty-three nonsynonymous rare variants were identified, including two novel variants located in the ANGPTL4 (p.Gly47Glu) and SCARB1 (p.Leu233Phe) genes. We did not find a significant association between rare variants and CAD via gene-based analysis via the SKAT-O test. Conclusions Targeted sequencing is a powerful tool for identifying rare and common variants in CAD. The common missense variant LIPC rs6083 confers protection against CAD. The clinical relevance of rare variants in CAD aetiology needs to be investigated in larger sample sizes in the future.

The rapid development of sequencing technology and simultaneously the availability of large quantities of sequence data provide an unprecedented opportunity for researchers to conduct studies to detect rare variants associated with the disease. However, none of the current existing statistical methods has uniform power in all scenarios because they are more or less affected by nonfunctional variants and variants with opposite effects. Here, we present a robust approach to identify rare variants using weighted entropy theory. Here, this approach takes the proportion of the minor allele among all k variants as its probability distribution, which reduces the noise incurred by noncausal variants, and uses a weight to strike a balance between deleterious rare variants and protective rare variants, which makes our method impacted less by variants with opposite effect. Through simulation studies, we investigate the performance of our method for rare variant association analyses as well as for common variant association analyses and compared it with Burden test and the SKAT. Simulation studies show that the proposed method is valid and affected slightly by noncausal variants and opposite effect variants with high and stable power for various parameters set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing evidence suggests that circadian dysfunction is related to Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the role of circadian clock genes in PD is still poorly understood. This study aimed to illustrate the association between genetic variants of circadian clock genes and PD in a large Chinese population cohort. Ten circadian clock genes were included in this study. Whole-exome sequencing (WES) was conducted in 1997 early-onset or familial PD patients and 1652 controls (WES cohort), and whole-genome sequencing (WGS) was conducted in 1962 sporadic late-onset PD patients and 1279 controls (WGS cohort). Analyses were completed using the optimized sequence kernel association test and regression analyses. In the burden analysis of the circadian clock gene set, we found suggestive significant associations between the circadian clock genes and PD in the WES cohort when considering missense, damaging missense (Dmis), and deleterious variants. Moreover, the burden analysis of single genes revealed suggestive significant associations between PD and the loss-of-function variants of the CRY1 gene, missense, Dmis, and deleterious variants of the PER1 gene, and Dmis and deleterious variants of the PER2 gene in the WES cohort. Rare variants in the WGS cohort and all common variants in the WGS and WES cohorts were unrelated to PD. Phenotypic analysis indicated that deleterious variants of the PER1 gene were associated with dyskinesia in the WES cohort. Our study provides evidence of a potential link between circadian clock genes and PD from a genetic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency (MADD) is an inherited metabolic disease caused by a defect in electron transfer flavoprotein alpha (ETFA), ETF beta (ETFB), or ETF dehydrogenase (ETFDH), and riboflavin metabolism disorders have recently been reported to present as mimicking MADD. MADD is roughly classified into neonatal (type 1 or 2) and later-onset (type 3) forms. To identify clinicogenetic characteristics in Japan, we investigated 37 Japanese patients with MADD diagnosed from 1997 to 2020. The causes of MADD were ETFDH deficiency in 26 patients, ETFA deficiency in four, ETFB deficiency in six, and riboflavin metabolism disorder in one. All 15 patients with the neonatal-onset type died by 2 years of age, while five of 22 patients with the later-onset form died by 3 years of age. Furthermore, 8 of 15 patients with the later-onset form of ETFDH deficiency treated with riboflavin were riboflavin non-responders. p.Y507D in ETFDH was identified as the most common variant (9 of 48 alleles, 18.8%). Of two patients with a homozygous p.Y507D variant, one experienced disease onset and died in the neonatal period, while the other experienced disease onset at two months of age and died at two years old, suggesting that the p.Y507D variant results in fatal outcomes. Our study concluded that more than half of Japanese patients with MADD died by three years old, and more than half of patients with the later-onset form had poor responsiveness to riboflavin, partly due to the unique Japanese p.Y507D variant in ETFDH.

Very long-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (VLCAD) deficiency has been a target of expanded newborn screening (ENBS) using tandem mass spectrometry in Japan. Since the implementation of ENBS, a number of novel ACADVL variants responsible for VLCAD deficiency have been identified. In this study, genotypic differences in Japanese patients with VLCAD deficiency were investigated before and after ENBS. The ACADVL variants in 61 subjects identified through ENBS (ENBS group) and in 40 patients who subsequently developed clinical symptoms without undergoing ENBS (pre-ENBS group) were compared. Subjects in the ENBS group underwent genetic testing and/or VLCAD enzyme activity measurements. Patients in the pre-ENBS group were stratified into three clinical phenotypes and underwent genetic testing. This study revealed that the variants p.K264E, p.K382Q and c.996dupT were found in both groups, but their frequencies were lower in the ENBS group (5.2%, 3.1% and 4.2%, respectively) than in the pre-ENBS group (16.5%, 12.7% and 10.1%, respectively). In addition, p.C607S, p.T409M, p.M478I, p.G289R, p.C237R, p.T260M, and p.R229* were exclusively identified in the ENBS group. Among these variants, p.C607S exhibited the highest frequency (18.8%). The patients who were heterozygous for p.C607S demonstrated 7–42% of control enzyme activity. p.C607S is suspected to be unique to Japanese individuals. According to a comparison of enzyme activity, patients with the p.C607S variant may exhibit higher enzyme activity than those with the p.A416T, p.A180T, p.R450H, and p.K264E variants, which are responsible for the myopathic form of the disease. The VLCAD deficiency genotypes have changed since the initiation of ENBS in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) represent a heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental disorders with strong genetic predispositions. Although an increasing number of genetic variants have been implicated in the pathogenesis of ASD, little is known about the relationship between ASD-associated genetic variants and individual ASD traits. Therefore, we aimed to investigate these relationships., Methods: Here, we report a case-control association study of 32 Japanese children with ASD (mainly with high-functioning autism [HFA]) and 36 with typical development (TD). We explored previously established ASD-associated genes using a next-generation sequencing panel and determined the association between Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) T-scores and intelligence quotient (IQ) scores., Results: In the genotype-phenotype analyses, 40 variants of five genes ( SCN1A , SHANK3, DYRK1A, CADPS, and SCN2A ) were associated with ASD/TD phenotypes. In particular, 10 SCN1A variants passed permutation filtering (false discovery rate <0.05). In the quantitative association analyses, 49 variants of 12 genes ( CHD8, SCN1A, SLC6A1, KMT5B, CNTNAP2, KCNQ3, SCN2A, ARID1B, SHANK3, DYRK1A, FOXP1, and GRIN2B ) and 50 variants of 10 genes ( DYRK1A, SCN2A, SLC6A1, ARID1B, CNTNAP2, SHANK3, FOXP1, PTEN, SCN1A, and CHD8 ) were associated with SRS T- and IQ-scores, respectively., Conclusion: Our data suggest that these identified variants are essential for the genetic architecture of HFA., Competing Interests: The authors declare that this research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Shiota, Nishiyama, Yokoyama, Yoshimura, Hasegawa, Tanaka, Iwasaki and Kikuchi.)

Neurodevelopmental disorders include a wide range of phenotypes caused by defects in the development and functioning of the central nervous system. Genetic factors play an important role in their aetiology. The view of the mode of genetic determination of neurodevelopmental disorders has changed several times during the last few decades. Today, a combined model prevails, according to which both common genetic variants with small effect and rare variants with strong effect participate in the development of these disorders, and both these mechanisms operate in parallel in each patient. Deciphering of polygenic networks of common variants is difficult, and the first associated loci have been reported only recently. Identification of variants with strong effect is easier, and they have been found in several hundred genes. Interestingly, these genes often support basic cellular processes, and their mutations appear to be tolerated in most systems, with the exception of the central nervous system. Progress in the identification of causal genes allows the definition of new syndromes involving neurodevelopmental disorders based on genetics. Today, however, this success is limited only to highly penetrant mutations in genes causing more frequent and more severe monogenic syndromes with lower phenotypic variability, and therefore many participating genes and the clinical entities linked to them remain unknown. Better understanding of the genetic mechanisms is already reflected in a more efficient genetic diagnostics, and will hopefully enable targeted therapy of some syndromes associated with neurodevelopmental disorders in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Objectives FTO rs9939609 variant has been shown to be associated with insulin resistance in Caucasian children. However, studies in Asia show inconsistent findings. We investigated the association between FTO rs9939609 polymorphisms and insulin resistance in obese female adolescents in Indonesia, a genetically distinct group within Asia. Results A total of 78 obese female adolescents participated in this study. The risk allele (A) frequency of FTO rs9939609 variant in Indonesian obese female adolescence was 44.2%. The frequency of insulin resistance was higher in the subjects with AA (54.6%) or AT (59.6%) than the subject with TT genotype (50%), but did not statistically different (p = 0.81 and p = 0.47, respectively). The insulin resistance rate was also higher in the risk allele (A) than the non-risk allele (T) subjects (0.58 vs. 0.55), but did not statistically different (p = 0.75). There was no association between FTO rs9939609 variant and body mass index, fasting glucose level, fasting insulin level, homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance, and waist circumference (p > 0.05). In conclusion, FTO rs9939609 variant may not be associated with insulin resistance in Indonesian obese female adolescents. A multicenter study with a larger sample size is needed to clarify these findings.

Sudden unexplained nocturnal death syndrome (SUNDS) is widely considered to be related to hereditary fatal arrhythmias. Hyperpolarization‐activated cyclic nucleotide‐gated channel 4 (HCN4) channels are widely distributed in sinus myocytes and play a profound role in generating pacemaker electro‐activity in cardiomyocytes. In the present study, the potential correlation between HCN4 gene variations and the occurrence of SUNDS was investigated. Genomic DNA was extracted from blood samples of both 119 unrelated SUNDS patients and 184 healthy individuals and screened for candidate HCN4 gene variants. One missense heterozygous variant c.1578C>T (Ala195Val) and four synonymous heterozygous variants c.1552C>T, c.2833C>T, c.3823C>T, and c.4189C>A were discovered in the SUNDS cases. The missense variant c.1578C>T (Ala195Val) was absent in 163 recruited controls and 105 persons of the Southern Han Chinese population, had in‐silico prediction indications as damaging, and was reported prevalent in sudden infant death, and is thus likely to be involved in SUNDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common and highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder. In recent years, genetic studies have revealed several risk gene variants associated with ADHD; however, these variants could only be partly replicated and are responsible for only a fraction of the whole heritability of ADHD estimated from family and twin studies. One factor that could potentially explain the 'missing heritability' of ADHD is that childhood and adult or persistent ADHD could be genetically distinct subtypes, which therefore need to be analyzed separately. Another approach to identify this missing heritability could be combining the investigation of both common and rare gene risk variants as well as polygenic risk scores. Finally, environmental factors are also thought to play an important role in the etiology of ADHD, acting either independently of the genetic background or more likely in gene–environment interactions. Environmental factors might additionally convey their influence by epigenetic mechanisms, which are relatively underexplored in ADHD. The aforementioned mechanisms might also influence the response of patients with ADHD to stimulant and other ADHD medication. We conducted a selective review with a focus on risk genes of childhood and adult ADHD, gene–environment interactions, and pharmacogenetics studies on medication response in childhood and adult ADHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies found the variants in Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk gene PLD3 were associated with cognitive function, but its detailed mechanism before typical AD onset was unknown. Our current study examined the impact of PLD3 common variant rs11667768 on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) total-tau and phosphorylated-tau levels and structural MRI from the ADNI database. We found rs11667768 was significantly associated with CSF total-tau levels and hippocampal volumes at baseline and six-year follow-up in the total non-demented elderly group and the mild cognitive impairment subgroup, indicating a potential role of PLD3 common variants in influencing cognitive function through changing CSF total-tau levels and hippocampal volumes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing evidence shows that one variant can affect multiple traits, which is a widespread phenomenon in complex diseases. Joint analysis of multiple traits can increase statistical power of association analysis and uncover the underlying genetic mechanism. Although there are many statistical methods to analyse multiple traits, most of these methods are usually suitable for detecting common variants associated with multiple traits. However, because of low minor allele frequency of rare variant, these methods are not optimal for rare variant association analysis. In this paper, we extend an adaptive combination of P values method (termed ADA) for single trait to test association between multiple traits and rare variants in the given region. For a given region, we use reverse regression model to test each rare variant associated with multiple traits and obtain the P value of single-variant test. Further, we take the weighted combination of these P values as the test statistic. Extensive simulation studies show that our approach is more powerful than several other comparison methods in most cases and is robust to the inclusion of a high proportion of neutral variants and the different directions of effects of causal variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in ethnic/racial minority populations can help to fine-map previously identified risk regions or discover new risk loci because of the genetic diversity in these populations. We conducted a GWAS of colorectal cancer (CRC) in 6,597 African Americans (1,894 cases and 4,703 controls) (Stage 1) and followed up the most promising markers in a replication set of 2,041 participants of African descent (891 cases and 1,150 controls) (Stage 2). We identified a novel variant, rs56848936 in the gene SYMPK at 19q13.3, associated with colon cancer risk (odds ratio 0.61 for the risk allele G, p = 2.4 × 10−8). The frequency of the G allele was 0.06 in African Americans, compared to <0.01 in Europeans, Asians and Amerindians in the 1000 Genomes project. In addition, a variant previously identified through fine-mapping in this GWAS in the region 19q13.1, rs7252505, was confirmed to be more strongly associated with CRC in the African American replication set than the variant originally reported in Europeans (rs10411210). The association between rs7252505 and CRC was of borderline significance ( p = 0.05) in a Hispanic population GWAS with 1,611 CRC cases and 4,330 controls. With the three datasets combined, the odds ratio was 0.84 for the risk allele A (95% confidence interval 0.79-0.89, p = 3.7 × 10−8). This study further highlights the importance of conducting GWAS studies in diverse ancestry populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recent identification of some novel risk genes for Alzheimer's disease (AD), the genetic etiology of late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) remains largely unknown. The inclusion of these novel risk genes to the risk attributable to the APOE gene accounts for roughly half of the total genetic variance in LOAD. The evidence indicates that undiscovered genetic factors may contribute to AD susceptibility. In the present study, we sequenced the MC1R gene in 525 Spanish LOAD patients and in 160 controls. We observed that a common MC1R variant p.V92M (rs2228479), not related to pigmentation traits, was present in 72 (14%) patients and 15 (9%) controls and confers increased risk of developing LOAD (OR: 1.99, 95% CI: 1.08-3.64, p = 0.026), especially in those patients whose genetic risk could not be explained by APOE genotype. This association remains and even increased in the subset of 69 patients with typical AD cerebrospinal fluid profile (OR: 3.40 95% CI: 1.40-8.27, p = 0.007). We did not find an association between p.V92M and age of onset of AD. Further studies are necessary to elucidate the role of MC1R in brain cells through the different MC1R pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating functional, temporal, and cell-type expression features of mutations is important for understanding a complex disease. Here, we collected and analyzed common variants and de novo mutations (DNMs) in schizophrenia (SCZ). We collected 2,636 missense and loss-of-function (LoF) DNMs in 2,263 genes across 3,477 SCZ patients (SCZ-DNMs). We curated three gene lists: (a) SCZ-neuroGenes (159 genes), which are intolerant to LoF and missense DNMs and are neurologically important, (b) SCZ-moduleGenes (52 genes), which were derived from network analyses of SCZ-DNMs, and (c) SCZ-commonGenes (120 genes) from a recent GWAS as reference. To compare temporal gene expression, we used the BrainSpan dataset. We defined a fetal effect score (FES) to quantify the involvement of each gene in prenatal brain development. We further employed the specificity indexes (SIs) to evaluate cell-type expression specificity from single-cell expression data in cerebral cortices of humans and mice. Compared with SCZ-commonGenes, SCZ-neuroGenes and SCZ-moduleGenes were highly expressed in the prenatal stage, had higher FESs, and had higher SIs in fetal replicating cells and undifferentiated cell types. Our results suggested that gene expression patterns in specific cell types in early fetal stages might have impacts on the risk of SCZ during adulthood., (© 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Recent studies have implicated the role of differential co-expression or correlation structure in gene expression data to help explain phenotypic differences. However, few attempts have been made to characterize the function of variants based on their role in regulating differential co-expression. Here we describe a statistical methodology that identifies pairs of transcripts that display differential correlation structure conditioned on genotypes of variants that regulate co-expression. Additionally, we present a user-friendly, computationally efficient tool, dcVar, that can be applied to expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) or RNA-Seq datasets to infer differential co-expression variants (dcVars). We apply dcVar to the HapMap3 eQTL dataset and demonstrate the utility of this methodology at uncovering novel function of variants of interest with examples from a height genome-wide association and cancer drug resistance. We provide evidence that differential correlation structure is a valuable intermediate molecular phenotype for further characterizing the function of variants identified in GWAS and related studies.

Complex inherited phenotypes, including those for many common medical and psychiatric diseases, are most likely underpinned by multiple genes contributing to interlocking molecular biological processes, along with environmental factors (Owen et al., 2010). Despite this, genotyping strategies for complex, inherited, disease-related phenotypes mostly employ univariate analyses, e.g. genome wide association (GWA). Such procedures most often identify isolated risk-related SNPs or loci, not the underlying biological pathways necessary to help guide the development of novel treatment approaches. This article focuses on the multivariate analysis strategy of parallel (i.e. simultaneous combination of SNP and neuroimage information) independent component analysis (p-ICA), which typically yields large clusters of functionally related SNPs statistically correlated with phenotype components, whose overall molecular biologic relevance is inferred subsequently using annotation software suites. Because this is a novel approach, whose details are relatively new to the field we summarize its underlying principles and address conceptual questions regarding interpretation of resulting data and provide practical illustrations of the method.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. Numerous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have found several AD susceptibility common loci but with limited effect size. Recent next-generation sequencing studies of large AD pedigrees had identified phospholipase D3 ( PLD3) p.V232M as the potentially functional rare variant with causal effect. However, four follow-up replication studies ( Brief Communications Arising on Nature) questioned that PLD3 V232M might not be so important in AD. In this study, we re-analyzed all public-available genetic (rare and common variants) and expression data of PLD3, and screened coding variants within PLD3 in probands of 18 Han Chinese families with AD, to clarify the exact involvement of PLD3 in AD. Two closest homologues of PLD3, PLD1 and PLD2, were also analyzed to comprehensively understand the role of phospholipase D members in AD. We found that PLD3 variant V232M was associated with AD risk in overall sample sets (∼40,000 subjects) with a modest to moderate effect size (odds ratio [OR] = 1.53). Our results also showed that common variants and mRNA expression alterations of PLD2 play a role in AD genetic risk and pathology. Although we provided a systematic view of the involvement of PLD3 in AD at the genetic, mRNA expression, and protein levels, we could not define the exact causal or essential role of PLD3 rare variants in AD based on currently available data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified Aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 ( ALDH2 ) as a susceptibility locus for coronary artery disease (CAD) previously. However, the impacts of common variants in this gene on CAD and its outcomes have not been extensively studied. This study explored the association between the Tagging SNPs in ALDH2 and CAD as well as its main outcomes. Six common variants in ALDH2 were selected as tagging SNPs and two cohorts containing 7296 individuals were genotyped to investigate the impacts of ALDH2 on CAD and its main outcomes. The results show that the variant rs671 in ALDH2 is associated with an increased risk of CAD in southern Chinese (OR = 1.26, 95%CI: 1.07–1.48, p = 0.004), while not in northern Chinese (OR = 1.00, 95%CI: 0.86–1.50, p = 0.94). Meanwhile, we find that rs671 genotypes may not influence the outcomes of CAD (HR = 1.11, 95%CI: 0.892–1.38, p = 0.346). Additionally, we also tested the effect of rs671 genotype on CAD severity, while no significant association was found between them. In the subgroup analysis, the results revealed that rs671 were significantly associated with CAD (OR = 1.24, 95%CI: 1.11–1.38, p < 0.001) in non-alcoholic subjects. Overall, our findings indicate that the associations between rs671 in ALDH2 and CAD are regional disparity, and rs671 genotypes may not influence the main outcomes of CAD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Recently, the common RET rs2435357 variant has been shown to be strongly related to Hirschsprung disease (HSCR) in the Indonesian population. This association study was conducted in developed areas using high-throughput TaqMan polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay. Although the TaqMan method is less time-consuming, it requires a special more expensive PCR machine and a highly skilled analyst. In this study, we analyzed the usefulness of the PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method for genotyping RET rs2435357 polymorphism in Indonesian HSCR patients given the limitation of resource allocation for more expensive technologies. Materials and methods We compared our previous genotyping results of RET rs2435357 in 53 HSCR patients and 86 controls using the TaqMan PCR assay with the PCR-RFLP technique. Furthermore, we included an additional 40 HSCR patients and 50 controls and subsequently genotyped all subjects using the PCR-RFLP method. Results Compared with our previous genotyping data of RET rs2435357 using the TaqMan PCR assay, the PCR-RFLP method indicated 100% concordant results. The overall accuracy of the PCR-RFLP for RET rs2435357 genotyping was 100%. In addition, case-control analysis demonstrated that RET rs2435357 is significantly correlated with HSCR ( P = 2.2 × 10 −13 ) with an odds ratio of 5.1 (95% confidence interval = 3.2-8.1). The transmission disequilibrium test revealed that risk allele (T) at rs2435357 is significantly overtransmitted to probands at a transmission rate (τ) of 0.87 ( P = 1.5 × 10 −6 ). Conclusions The PCR-RFLP method is reliable and affordable for genotyping of RET rs2435357 polymorphism in developing countries. Our results strengthen the proof that the RET rs2435357 variant is a genetic risk for HSCR in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have revealed a plethora of putative susceptibility genes for Alzheimer's disease (AD). With the sole exception of the APOE gene, these AD susceptibility genes have not been unequivocally validated in independent studies. No single novel functional risk genetic variant has been identified. In this review, we evaluate recent GWASs of AD, and discuss their significance, limitations, and challenges in the investigation of the genetic spectrum of AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have implicated the role of differential co-expression or correlation structure in gene expression data to help explain phenotypic differences. However, few attempts have been made to characterize the function of variants based on their role in regulating differential co-expression. Here, we describe a statistical methodology that identifies pairs of transcripts that display differential correlation structure conditioned on genotypes of variants that regulate co-expression. Additionally, we present a user-friendly, computationally efficient tool, dcVar, that can be applied to expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) or RNA-Seq datasets to infer differential co-expression variants (dcVars). We apply dcVar to the HapMap3 eQTL dataset and demonstrate the utility of this methodology at uncovering novel function of variants of interest with examples from a height genome-wide association and cancer drug resistance. We provide evidence that differential correlation structure is a valuable intermediate molecular phenotype for further characterizing the function of variants identified in GWAS and related studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex inherited phenotypes, including those for many common medical and psychiatric diseases, are most likely underpinned by multiple genes contributing to interlocking molecular biological processes, along with environmental factors (Owen et al., 2010). Despite this, genotyping strategies for complex, inherited, disease-related phenotypes mostly employ univariate analyses, e.g., genome wide association. Such procedures most often identify isolated risk-related SNPs or loci, not the underlying biological pathways necessary to help guide the development of novel treatment approaches. This article focuses on the multivariate analysis strategy of parallel (i.e., simultaneous combination of SNP and neuroimage information) independent component analysis (p-ICA), which typically yields large clusters of functionally related SNPs statistically correlated with phenotype components, whose overall molecular biologic relevance is inferred subsequently using annotation software suites. Because this is a novel approach, whose details are relatively new to the field we summarize its underlying principles and address conceptual questions regarding interpretation of resulting data and provide practical illustrations of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dengue causes significantly more human disease than any other arboviruses. It causes a spectrum of illness, ranging from mild self-limited fever, to severe and fatal dengue hemorrhagic fever, as evidenced by vascular leakage and multifactorial hemostatic abnormalities. There is no specific treatment available till date. Evidence shows that chemokines CXCL10, CXCL11 and their receptor CXCR3 are involved in severity of dengue, but their genetic association with the susceptibility of vascular leakage during dengue infection has not been reported. We genotyped 14 common variants of these candidate genes in 176 patients infected with dengue. rs4859584 and rs8878 (CXCL10) were significantly associated with vascular permeability of dengue infection ( P < 0.05); while variants of CXCL11 showed moderate significance of association ( P = 0.0527). Haplotype blocks were constructed for genes CXCL10 and CXCL11 (5 and 7 common variants respectively). Haplotype association tests performed revealed that, “CCCCA” of gene CXCL10 and “AGTTTAC” of CXCL11 were found to be significantly associated with vascular leakage ( P = 0.0154 and 0.0366 respectively). In summary, our association study further strengthens the evidence of the involvement of CXCL10 and CXCL11 in the pathogenesis of dengue infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we investigate the association of common polymorphisms of the NOS1AP gene with sudden unexplained nocturnal death syndrome (SUNDS) in the southern Chinese Han population. We genetically screened five common NOS1AP polymorphisms (rs10918594, rs12143842, rs16847548, rs12567209, and rs10494366) previously reported to be associated with QT interval variation and sudden cardiac death (SCD) in 123 sporadic SUNDS cases and 166 healthy controls using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and direct DNA sequencing. In the present study, the A allele of rs12567209 was more common in controls than in SUNDS cases, which was associated with 0.656-fold decreased risk of SUNDS (95 % confidence interval 0.431 to 0.998, P = 0.048) compared with G allele. Under the dominant genetic model, GA + AA genotype of rs12567209 was also more common in controls than in SUNDS cases, which was associated with 0.604-fold decreased risk of SUNDS (95 % confidence interval 0.368 to 0.991, P = 0.045) compared with GG genotype. No significant associations of rs10918594, rs12143842, rs16847548, and rs10494366 with SUNDS were observed ( P > 0.05). In haplotype analyses, the distribution of haplotype GCTA was significantly overrepresented in controls compared to SUNDS cases ( P = 0.040). This is the first report of the association of common NOS1AP polymorphisms with SUNDS in the southern Chinese Han population. These findings suggest that the A allele of rs12567209 and haplotype GCTA may serve as a protective modifier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genetic architecture of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is complex. Common genetic variation has especially been related to high-functioning ASD. In addition, some studies favoured analysis of strictly diagnosed autism individuals, which resulted in more robust findings than the combined analysis of all spectrum individuals. Functional variants modulating EIF4E expression have previously been indicated as risk factors for ASD. Pharmacological modulation of glutamate receptors which regulate EIF4E activity resulted in reduced repetitive behaviours in human and animal studies. Based on these findings, we tested common EIF4E variants for association with overall ASD, with strict autism and with the strict high-functioning autism (strict HFA) subgroup, and their effect on repetitive and/or stereotypic behaviour. We observed over-transmission of rs13109000G in the strict HFA and the strict autism cohort but not in the larger ASD cohort. We report protective effects for the minor allele of rs4699369T on stereotyped and ritualized behaviour in the overall ASD cohort, the strict autism but not in the strict HFA group. In addition, a protective role for rs4699369T and a risk effect of rs12498533G on hand and finger mannerisms was observed. These results need to be replicated in larger ASD and strict autism samples. The predicted impact on transcription through the ASD associated EIF4E variants rs4699369T and rs12498533G as well as the association of the EIF4E interaction partners FMRP and CYFIP1 with ASD point to an mRNA mediated pathomechanism for ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Only a minority of individuals infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis develop clinical tuberculosis. Genetic epidemiological evidence suggests that pulmonary tuberculosis has a strong human genetic component. Previous genetic findings in Mendelian predisposition to more severe mycobacterial infections, including by M. tuberculosis, underlined the importance of the interleukin 12 (IL-12)/interferon γ (IFN-γ) circuit in antimycobacterial immunity.Methods. We conducted an association study in Morocco between pulmonary tuberculosis and a panel of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) covering 14 core IL-12/IFN-γ circuit genes. The analyses were performed in a discovery family-based sample followed by replication in a case-control population.Results. Out of 228 SNPs tested in the family-based sample, 6 STAT4 SNPs were associated with pulmonary tuberculosis (P = .0013–.01). We replicated the same direction of association for 1 cluster of 3 SNPs encompassing the promoter region of STAT4. In the combined sample, the association was stronger among younger subjects (pulmonary tuberculosis onset <25 years) with an odds ratio of developing pulmonary tuberculosis at rs897200 for GG vs AG/AA subjects of 1.47 (1.06–2.04). Previous functional experiments showed that the G allele of rs897200 was associated with lower STAT4 expression.Conclusions. Our present findings in a Moroccan population support an association of pulmonary tuberculosis with STAT4 promoter-region polymorphisms that may impact STAT4 expression. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The epilepsies are a clinically heterogeneous group of common brain diseases which are refractory to pharmacotherapy in up to one-third of patients. The discovery of DNA variants that cause or predispose to epilepsy has the potential to lead to new treatments that are based on the protein products or functional pathways of implicated genes. Overlap of gene classes involved in several broad phenotypic categories of epilepsy provides a means to prioritize various genetic leads for therapy development. In cases of epilepsy that are influenced strongly by single genetic defects, treatments may be personalized based upon the structural nature of the DNA alteration rather than on the function of the defective gene(s) or pathway(s). However, since most cases of epilepsy may be polygenic, the extent to which this approach may be widely applicable is unclear, thus creating a need for development of new target-based medications as well as further refinement of currently effective therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency (MADD) is an inherited metabolic disease caused by a defect in electron transfer flavoprotein alpha (ETFA), ETF beta (ETFB), or ETF dehydrogenase (ETFDH), and riboflavin metabolism disorders have recently been reported to present as mimicking MADD. MADD is roughly classified into neonatal (type 1 or 2) and later-onset (type 3) forms. To identify clinicogenetic characteristics in Japan, we investigated 37 Japanese patients with MADD diagnosed from 1997 to 2020. The causes of MADD were ETFDH deficiency in 26 patients, ETFA deficiency in four, ETFB deficiency in six, and riboflavin metabolism disorder in one. All 15 patients with the neonatal-onset type died by 2 years of age, while five of 22 patients with the later-onset form died by 3 years of age. Furthermore, 8 of 15 patients with the later-onset form of ETFDH deficiency treated with riboflavin were riboflavin non-responders. p.Y507D in ETFDH was identified as the most common variant (9 of 48 alleles, 18.8%). Of two patients with a homozygous p.Y507D variant, one experienced disease onset and died in the neonatal period, while the other experienced disease onset at two months of age and died at two years old, suggesting that the p.Y507D variant results in fatal outcomes. Our study concluded that more than half of Japanese patients with MADD died by three years old, and more than half of patients with the later-onset form had poor responsiveness to riboflavin, partly due to the unique Japanese p.Y507D variant in ETFDH ., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare regarding the publication of this manuscript., (© 2022 The Authors.)

ABSTRACT Vitamin D deficiency has been recognized as a major public health issue worldwide. Recent studies have indicated that genetic factors might play an important role in determining serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] levels in Caucasians and African Americans. However, the genes that contribute to the variation in serum 25(OH)D levels in Chinese are unknown. In this study, we screened 15 key genes within the vitamin D metabolic pathway using 96 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers in a group of 2897 unrelated healthy Chinese subjects. Significant confounding factors that may influence the variability in serum 25(OH)D levels were used as covariates for association analyses. An association test for quantitative traits was performed to evaluate the association between candidate genes and serum 25(OH)D levels. In the present study, variants and/or haplotypes in GC, CYP2R1, and DHCR7/NADSYN1 were identified as being associated with 25(OH)D levels. Participants with three or four risk alleles of the two variants ( GC-rs4588 and CYP2R1-rs10766197) had an increased chance of presenting with a 25(OH)D concentration lower than 20 ng/mL (odds ratio 2.121, 95% confidence interval 1.586-2.836, p = 6.1 × 10−8) compared with those lacking the risk alleles. Each additional copy of a risk allele was significantly associated with a 0.12-fold decrease in the log-25(OH)D concentration ( p = 3.7 × 10−12). Haplotype TGA of GC rs705117-rs2282679-rs1491710, haplotype GAGTAC of GC rs842999-rs705120-rs222040-rs4588-rs7041-rs10488854, haplotype CA of GC rs1155563-rs222029, and haplotype AAGA of CYP2R1 rs7936142-rs12794714-rs2060793-rs16930609 were genetic risk factors toward a lower 25(OH)D concentration. In contrast, haplotype TGGGCCC of DHCR7/NADSYN1 rs1790349-rs7122671-rs1790329-rs11606033-rs2276360-rs1629220-rs2282618 were genetic protective factors. The results suggest that the GC, CYP2R1, and DHCR7/NADSYN1 genes might contribute to variability in the serum 25(OH)D levels in a healthy Chinese population in Shanghai. These markers could be used as tools in Mendelian randomization analyses of vitamin D, and they could potentially be drug targets in the Chinese population in Shanghai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the predictive power of morphological features in 224 autistic patients and 224 matched-pairs controls. To assess the relationship between the morphological features and autism, we used the receiver operator curves (ROC). In addition, we used recursive partitioning (RP) to determine a specific pattern of abnormalities that is characteristic for the difference between autistic children and typically developing controls. The present findings showed that morphological features are significantly increased in patients with autism. Using ROC and RP, some of the morphological measures also led to strong predictive accuracy. Facial asymmetry, multiple hair whorls and prominent forehead significantly differentiated patients with autism from controls. Future research on multivariable risk prediction models may benefit from the use of morphological features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hip osteoarthritis (HOA) is one of the most disabling and common joint disorders with a large genetic component that is, however, still ill-defined. To date, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in osteoarthritis (OA) and specifically in HOA have yielded only few loci, which is partly explained by heterogeneity in the OA definition. Therefore, we here focused on radiographically measured joint-space width (JSW), a proxy for cartilage thickness and an important underlying intermediate trait for HOA. In a GWAS of 6,523 individuals on hip-JSW, we identified the G allele of rs12982744 on chromosome 19p13.3 to be associated with a 5% larger JSW (P = 4.8× 10-10). The association was replicated in 4,442 individuals from three United Kingdom cohorts with an overall meta-analysis P value of 1.1× 10-11. The SNP was also strongly associated with a 12% reduced risk for HOA (P = 1× 10-4). The SNP is located in the DOT1L gene, which is an evolutionarily conserved histone methyltransferase, recently identified as a potentially dedicated enzyme for Wnt target-gene activation in leukemia. Immunohistochemical staining of the DOT1L protein in mouse limbs supports a role for DOT1L in chondrogenic differentiation and adult articular cartilage. DOT1L is also expressed in OA articular chondrocytes. Silencing of Dot1l inhibited chondrogenesis in vitro. Dot1l knockdown reduces proteoglycan and collagen content, and mineralization during chondrogenesis. In the ATDC5 chondrogenesis model system, DOT1L interacts with TCF and Wnt signaling. These data are a further step to better understand the role of Wnt-signaling during chondrogenesis and cartilage homeostasis. DOT1L may represent a therapeutic target for OA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been successful in detecting common genetic variants underlying common traits and diseases. Despite the GWAS success stories, the percent trait variance explained by GWAS signals, the so called "missing heritability" has been, at best, modest. Also, the predictive power of common variants identified by GWAS has not been encouraging. Given these observations along with the fact that the effects of rare variants are often, by design, unaccounted for by GWAS and the availability of sequence data, there is a growing need for robust analytic approaches to evaluate the contribution of rare variants to common complex diseases. Here we propose a new method that enables the simultaneous analysis of the association between rare and common variants in disease etiology. We refer to this method as SCARVA (simultaneous common and rare variants analysis). SCARVA is simple to use and is efficient. We used SCARVA to analyze two independent real datasets to identify rare and common variants underlying variation in obesity among participants in the Africa America Diabetes Mellitus (AADM) study and plasma triglyceride levels in the Dallas Heart Study (DHS). We found common and rare variants associated with both traits, consistent with published results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ATP-binding cassette, subfamily G, member 2 gene ABCG2/BCRP locates in a gout-susceptibility locus (MIM 138900) on chromosome 4q. Recent genome-wide association studies also showed that the ABCG2 gene relates to serum uric acid levels and gout. Since ABCG2 is also known as a transporter of nucleotide analogs that are structurally similar to urate, and is an exporter that has common polymorphic reduced functionality variants, ABCG2 could be a urate secretion transporter and a gene causing gout. To find candidate mutations in ABCG2, we performed a mutation analysis of the ABCG2 gene in 90 Japanese patients with hyperuricemia and found six non-synonymous mutations. Among the variants, ATP-dependent urate transport was reduced or eliminated in five variants, and two out of the five variants (Q126X and Q141K) were frequently detected in patients. Haplotype frequency analysis revealed that there is no simultaneous presence of Q126X and Q141K in one haplotype. As Q126X and Q141K are a nonfunctional and half-functional haplotype, respectively, their genotype combinations are divided into four estimated functional groups. The association study with 161 male gout patients and 865 male controls showed that all of those who had dysfunctional ABCG2 had an increased risk of gout, and that a remarkable risk was observed in those with ≤1/4 function (OR, 25.8; 95% CI, 10.3–64.6; p = 3.39 × 10−21). In 2,150 Japanese individuals, the frequency of those with dysfunctional ABCG2 was more than 50%. Our function-based clinicogenetic analysis identified the combinations of dysfunctional variants of ABCG2 as a major contributing factor in Japanese patients with gout. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A genome-wide association study of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) suggested that common variants at 15q25.2 (rs783540) and 18q21.1 (rs1036935) influence CLL. To validate these associations and explore their relationship with CLL risk we genotyped case-control datasets from Poland, UK and Italy totalling 1428 cases and 1920 controls. Combined data from these and previously genotyped series (2503 cases and 5789 controls) provided evidence for an association between 15q25.2 and 18q21.1 loci and CLL risk ( P = 1·10 × 10 and 1·30 × 10 respectively). These data provide further evidence for the involvement of common genetic variants in CLL risk and insight into the biological basis of disease development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid methodological advances in statistical and computational genomics have enabled researchers to better identify and interpret both rare and common variants responsible for complex human diseases. As we continue to see an expansion of these advances in the field, it is now imperative for researchers to understand the resources and methodologies available for various data types and study designs. In this review, we provide an overview of recent methods for identifying rare and common variants and understanding their roles in disease etiology. Additionally, we discuss the strategy, challenge, and promise of gene therapy. As computational and statistical approaches continue to improve, we will have an opportunity to translate human genetic findings into personalized health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) recently identified common variants in the CDKN2A/CDKN2B region on chromosome 9p as being strongly associated with type 2 diabetes. Since these association signals were not picked up by the French-Canadian GWAS, we sought to replicate these findings in the French Europid population and to further characterise the susceptibility variants at this novel locus. We genotyped 20 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) spanning the CDKN2A/CDKN2B locus in our type 2 diabetes case-control cohort. The association between CDKN2A/CDKN2B SNPs and quantitative metabolic traits was also examined in the normoglycaemic participants comprising the control cohort. We report replication of the strong association of rs10811661 with type 2 diabetes found in the GWASs ( $$ p = 3.8 \times 10^{ - 7} $$ ; OR 1.43 [95% CI 1.24–1.64]). The other CDKN2A/CDKN2B susceptibility variant, rs564398, did not attain statistical significance ( p = 0.053; OR 1.11 [95% CI 1.00–1.24]) in the present study. We also obtained several additional nominal association signals ( p < 0.05) at the CDKN2A/CDKN2B locus; however, only the rs3218018 result ( p = 0.002) survived Bonferroni correction for multiple testing (adjusted p = 0.04). Our comprehensive association study of common variation spanning the CDKN2A/CDKN2B locus confirms the strong association between the distal susceptibility variant rs10811661 and type 2 diabetes in the French population. Further genetic and functional studies are required to identify the aetiological variants at this locus and determine the cellular and physiological mechanisms by which they act to modulate type 2 diabetes susceptibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Immune responses characterized by TH2 type cells and IgE are important for the development of asthma and atopy. The transcription factors STAT6, GATA3, and STAT4 mediate the cytokine-induced development of naïve CD4+ T cells into either TH1 or TH2 type. Objective: We studied genetic variation of the STAT6, GATA3, and STAT4 genes and examined whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in these loci were associated with asthma or serum high IgE levels in the Finnish asthmatic families. Methods: With denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography we screened all exons and exon-intron boundaries of the genes in 14 to 22 patients. All identified SNPs were genotyped in 120 nuclear families, and the haplotypes were analyzed by Haplotype Pattern Mining based statistical analysis. When potential association was observed, the analysis was replicated among 245 asthmatic patients and 405 population-based control subjects. Results: A total of 23 SNPs were identified, of which 8 were not previously listed in the SNP database. Interestingly, a haplotype analysis of GATA3 showed 3 related haplotypes that associated with different asthma and atopy related phenotypes among both the family and case-control data sets. For STAT6 and STAT4, no significant association to asthma or serum total IgE levels was observed. Conclusions: We identified a panel of novel SNPs in genes coding for proteins important in the TH1/TH2 cell differentiation. SNPs of the GATA3 gene showed an initial association to asthma-related phenotypes. Elucidation of the importance of the identified panel of SNPs in other TH1/TH2 mediated diseases will be of great interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]