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Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease with marked gender and ethnic disparities. We report a large transancestral association study of SLE using Immunochip genotype data from 27,574 individuals of European (EA), African (AA) and Hispanic Amerindian (HA) ancestry. We identify 58 distinct non-HLA regions in EA, 9 in AA and 16 in HA (∼50% of these regions have multiple independent associations); these include 24 novel SLE regions (P

Objectives: Genome-wide association studies have facilitated the identification of over 30 susceptibility loci for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, evidence for a number of potential susceptibility genes have not so far reached genome-wide significance in studies of Caucasian RA. Methods: A cohort of 4286 RA patients from across Europe and 5642 population matched controls were genotyped for 25 SNPs, then combined in a meta-analysis with previously published data. Results: Significant evidence of association was detected for nine SNPs within the European samples. When meta-analysed with previously published data, 21 SNPs were associated with RA susceptibility. Although SNPs in the PTPN2 gene were previously reported to be associated with RA in both Japanese and European populations, we show genome-wide evidence for a different SNP within this gene associated with RA susceptibility in an independent European population (rs7234029, P = 4.4×10−9). Conclusions: This study provides further genome-wide evidence for the association of the PTPN2 locus (encoding the T cell protein tyrosine phosphastase) with Caucasian RA susceptibility. This finding adds to the growing evidence for PTPN2 being a pan-autoimmune susceptibility gene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common immune-mediated arthritis. Anti-citrullinated peptide antibodies (ACPA) are highly specific to RA and assayed with the commercial CCP2 assay. Genetic drivers of RA within the MHC are different for CCP2-positive and -negative subsets of RA, particularly at HLA-DRB1. However, aspartic acid at amino acid position 9 in HLA-B (Bpos-9) increases risk to both RA subsets. Here we explore how individual serologies associated with RA drive associations within the MHC. To define MHC differences for specific ACPA serologies, we quantified a total of 19 separate ACPAs in RA-affected case subjects from four cohorts (n = 6,805). We found a cluster of tightly co-occurring antibodies (canonical serologies, containing CCP2), along with several independently expressed antibodies (non-canonical serologies). After imputing HLA variants into 6,805 case subjects and 13,467 control subjects, we tested associations between the HLA region and RA subgroups based on the presence of canonical and/or non-canonical serologies. We examined CCP2(+) and CCP2(−) RA-affected case subjects separately. In CCP2(−) RA, we observed that the association between CCP2(−) RA and Bpos-9 was derived from individuals who were positive for non-canonical serologies (omnibus_p = 9.2 × 10−17). Similarly, we observed in CCP2(+) RA that associations between subsets of CCP2(+) RA and Bpos-9 were negatively correlated with the number of positive canonical serologies (p = 0.0096). These findings suggest unique genetic characteristics underlying fine-specific ACPAs, suggesting that RA may be further subdivided beyond simply seropositive and seronegative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]