@article {831, title = {Identification of Required Host Factors for SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Human Cells.}, journal = {Cell}, volume = {184}, year = {2021}, month = {2021 01 07}, pages = {92-105.e16}, abstract = {

To better understand host-virus genetic dependencies and find potential therapeutic targets for COVID-19, we performed a genome-scale CRISPR loss-of-function screen to identify host factors required for SARS-CoV-2 viral infection of human alveolar epithelial cells. Top-ranked genes cluster into distinct pathways, including the vacuolar ATPase proton pump, Retromer, and Commander complexes. We validate these gene targets using several orthogonal methods such as CRISPR knockout, RNA interference knockdown, and small-molecule inhibitors. Using single-cell RNA-sequencing, we identify shared transcriptional changes in cholesterol biosynthesis upon loss of top-ranked genes. In addition, given the key role of the ACE2 receptor in the early stages of viral entry, we show that loss of RAB7A reduces viral entry by sequestering the ACE2 receptor inside cells. Overall, this work provides a genome-scale, quantitative resource of the impact of the loss of each host gene on fitness/response to viral infection.

}, keywords = {A549 Cells, Alveolar Epithelial Cells, Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2, Biosynthetic Pathways, Cholesterol, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, COVID-19, Endosomes, Gene Expression Profiling, Gene Knockdown Techniques, Gene Knockout Techniques, Genome-Wide Association Study, Host-Pathogen Interactions, Humans, rab GTP-Binding Proteins, RNA Interference, SARS-CoV-2, Single-Cell Analysis, Viral Load}, issn = {1097-4172}, doi = {10.1016/j.cell.2020.10.030}, author = {Daniloski, Zharko and Jordan, Tristan X and Wessels, Hans-Hermann and Hoagland, Daisy A and Kasela, Silva and Legut, Mateusz and Maniatis, Silas and Mimitou, Eleni P and Lu, Lu and Geller, Evan and Danziger, Oded and Rosenberg, Brad R and Phatnani, Hemali and Smibert, Peter and Lappalainen, Tuuli and tenOever, Benjamin R and Sanjana, Neville E} } @article {992, title = {SARS-CoV-2-related MIS-C: A key to the viral and genetic causes of Kawasaki disease?}, journal = {J Exp Med}, volume = {218}, year = {2021}, month = {2021 06 07}, abstract = {

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) emerged in April 2020 in communities with high COVID-19 rates. This new condition is heterogenous but resembles Kawasaki disease (KD), a well-known but poorly understood and clinically heterogenous pediatric inflammatory condition for which weak associations have been found with a myriad of viral illnesses. Epidemiological data clearly indicate that SARS-CoV-2 is the trigger for MIS-C, which typically occurs about 1 mo after infection. These findings support the hypothesis of viral triggers for the various forms of classic KD. We further suggest that rare inborn errors of immunity (IEIs) altering the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 may underlie the pathogenesis of MIS-C in some children. The discovery of monogenic IEIs underlying MIS-C would shed light on its pathogenesis, paving the way for a new genetic approach to classic KD, revisited as a heterogeneous collection of IEIs to viruses.

}, keywords = {Biomarkers, Child, COVID-19, Cytokines, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Inflammation, Inflammation Mediators, Lymphohistiocytosis, Hemophagocytic, Models, Biological, Mucocutaneous Lymph Node Syndrome, Pandemics, SARS-CoV-2, Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome}, issn = {1540-9538}, doi = {10.1084/jem.20210446}, author = {Sancho-Shimizu, Vanessa and Brodin, Petter and Cobat, Aurelie and Biggs, Catherine M and Toubiana, Julie and Lucas, Carrie L and Henrickson, Sarah E and Belot, Alexandre and Tangye, Stuart G and Milner, Joshua D and Levin, Michael and Abel, Laurent and Bogunovic, Dusan and Casanova, Jean-Laurent and Zhang, Shen-Ying} } @article {897, title = {Whole-genome sequencing of African Americans implicates differential genetic architecture in inflammatory bowel disease.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {108}, year = {2021}, month = {2021 03 04}, pages = {431-445}, abstract = {

Whether or not populations diverge with respect to the genetic contribution to risk of specific complex diseases is relevant to understanding the evolution of susceptibility and origins of health disparities. Here, we describe a large-scale whole-genome sequencing study of inflammatory bowel disease encompassing 1,774 affected individuals and 1,644 healthy control Americans with African ancestry (African Americans). Although no new loci for inflammatory bowel disease are discovered at genome-wide significance levels, we identify numerous instances of differential effect sizes in combination with divergent allele frequencies. For example, the major effect at PTGER4 fine maps to a single credible interval of 22 SNPs corresponding to one of four independent associations at the locus in European ancestry individuals but with an elevated odds ratio for Crohn disease in African Americans. A rare variant aggregate analysis implicates Ca-binding neuro-immunomodulator CALB2 in ulcerative colitis. Highly significant overall overlap of common variant risk for inflammatory bowel disease susceptibility between individuals with African and European ancestries was observed, with 41 of 241 previously known lead variants replicated and overall correlations in effect sizes of 0.68 for combined inflammatory bowel disease. Nevertheless, subtle differences influence the performance of polygenic risk scores, and we show that ancestry-appropriate weights significantly improve polygenic prediction in the highest percentiles of risk. The median amount of variance explained per locus remains the same in African and European cohorts, providing evidence for compensation of effect sizes as allele frequencies diverge, as expected under a highly polygenic model of disease.

}, keywords = {African Americans, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Calbindin 2, Colitis, Ulcerative, Crohn Disease, European Continental Ancestry Group, Female, Gene Frequency, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, Male, Multifactorial Inheritance, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Receptors, Prostaglandin E, EP4 Subtype, Whole Genome Sequencing}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2021.02.001}, author = {Somineni, Hari K and Nagpal, Sini and Venkateswaran, Suresh and Cutler, David J and Okou, David T and Haritunians, Talin and Simpson, Claire L and Begum, Ferdouse and Datta, Lisa W and Quiros, Antonio J and Seminerio, Jenifer and Mengesha, Emebet and Alexander, Jonathan S and Baldassano, Robert N and Dudley-Brown, Sharon and Cross, Raymond K and Dassopoulos, Themistocles and Denson, Lee A and Dhere, Tanvi A and Iskandar, Heba and Dryden, Gerald W and Hou, Jason K and Hussain, Sunny Z and Hyams, Jeffrey S and Isaacs, Kim L and Kader, Howard and Kappelman, Michael D and Katz, Jeffry and Kellermayer, Richard and Kuemmerle, John F and Lazarev, Mark and Li, Ellen and Mannon, Peter and Moulton, Dedrick E and Newberry, Rodney D and Patel, Ashish S and Pekow, Joel and Saeed, Shehzad A and Valentine, John F and Wang, Ming-Hsi and McCauley, Jacob L and Abreu, Maria T and Jester, Traci and Molle-Rios, Zarela and Palle, Sirish and Scherl, Ellen J and Kwon, John and Rioux, John D and Duerr, Richard H and Silverberg, Mark S and Zwick, Michael E and Stevens, Christine and Daly, Mark J and Cho, Judy H and Gibson, Greg and McGovern, Dermot P B and Brant, Steven R and Kugathasan, Subra} } @article {950, title = {8q24 genetic variation and comprehensive haplotypes altering familial risk of prostate cancer.}, journal = {Nat Commun}, volume = {11}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 03 23}, pages = {1523}, abstract = {

The 8q24 genomic locus is tied to the origin of numerous cancers. We investigate its contribution to hereditary prostate cancer (HPC) in independent study populations of the Nashville Familial Prostate Cancer Study and International Consortium for Prostate Cancer Genetics (combined: 2,836 HPC cases, 2,206 controls of European ancestry). Here we report 433 variants concordantly associated with HPC in both study populations, accounting for 9\% of heritability and modifying age of diagnosis as well as aggressiveness; 183 reach genome-wide significance. The variants comprehensively distinguish independent risk-altering haplotypes overlapping the 648 kb locus (three protective, and four risk (peak odds ratios: 1.5, 4, 5, and 22)). Sequence of the near-Mendelian haplotype reveals eleven causal mutation candidates. We introduce a linkage disequilibrium-based algorithm discerning eight independent sentinel variants, carrying considerable risk prediction ability (AUC = 0.625) for a single locus. These findings elucidate 8q24 locus structure and correlates for clinical prediction of prostate cancer risk.

}, keywords = {Aged, Case-Control Studies, Chromosomes, Human, Pair 8, European Continental Ancestry Group, Genetic Loci, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Haplotypes, Heterozygote, Humans, Linkage Disequilibrium, Male, Middle Aged, Mutation, Prostatic Neoplasms, Protective Factors, Risk Factors}, issn = {2041-1723}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-020-15122-1}, author = {Dupont, William D and Breyer, Joan P and Plummer, W Dale and Chang, Sam S and Cookson, Michael S and Smith, Joseph A and Blue, Elizabeth E and Bamshad, Michael J and Smith, Jeffrey R} } @article {850, title = {Analysis of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging in 36,000 individuals yields genetic insights into dilated cardiomyopathy.}, journal = {Nat Commun}, volume = {11}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 05 07}, pages = {2254}, abstract = {

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is an important cause of heart failure and the leading indication for heart transplantation. Many rare genetic variants have been associated with DCM, but common variant studies of the disease have yielded few associated loci. As structural changes in the heart are a defining feature of DCM, we report a genome-wide association study of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-derived left ventricular measurements in 36,041 UK Biobank participants, with replication in 2184 participants from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. We identify 45 previously unreported loci associated with cardiac structure and function, many near well-established genes for Mendelian cardiomyopathies. A polygenic score of MRI-derived left ventricular end systolic volume strongly associates with incident DCM in the general population. Even among carriers of TTN truncating mutations, this polygenic score influences the size and function of the human heart. These results further implicate common genetic polymorphisms in the pathogenesis of DCM.

}, keywords = {Cardiomyopathy, Dilated, Genome-Wide Association Study, Heart, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Myocardium, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide}, issn = {2041-1723}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-020-15823-7}, author = {Pirruccello, James P and Bick, Alexander and Wang, Minxian and Chaffin, Mark and Friedman, Samuel and Yao, Jie and Guo, Xiuqing and Venkatesh, Bharath Ambale and Taylor, Kent D and Post, Wendy S and Rich, Stephen and Lima, Joao A C and Rotter, Jerome I and Philippakis, Anthony and Lubitz, Steven A and Ellinor, Patrick T and Khera, Amit V and Kathiresan, Sekar and Aragam, Krishna G} } @article {851, title = {Epilepsy subtype-specific copy number burden observed in a genome-wide study of 17 458 subjects.}, journal = {Brain}, volume = {143}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 07 01}, pages = {2106-2118}, abstract = {

Cytogenic testing is routinely applied in most neurological centres for severe paediatric epilepsies. However, which characteristics of copy number variants (CNVs) confer most epilepsy risk and which epilepsy subtypes carry the most CNV burden, have not been explored on a genome-wide scale. Here, we present the largest CNV investigation in epilepsy to date with 10 712 European epilepsy cases and 6746 ancestry-matched controls. Patients with genetic generalized epilepsy, lesional focal epilepsy, non-acquired focal epilepsy, and developmental and epileptic encephalopathy were included. All samples were processed with the same technology and analysis pipeline. All investigated epilepsy types, including lesional focal epilepsy patients, showed an increase in CNV burden in at least one tested category compared to controls. However, we observed striking differences in CNV burden across epilepsy types and investigated CNV categories. Genetic generalized epilepsy patients have the highest CNV burden in all categories tested, followed by developmental and epileptic encephalopathy patients. Both epilepsy types also show association for deletions covering genes intolerant for truncating variants. Genome-wide CNV breakpoint association showed not only significant loci for genetic generalized and developmental and epileptic encephalopathy patients but also for lesional focal epilepsy patients. With a 34-fold risk for developing genetic generalized epilepsy, we show for the first time that the established epilepsy-associated 15q13.3 deletion represents the strongest risk CNV for genetic generalized epilepsy across the whole genome. Using the human interactome, we examined the largest connected component of the genes overlapped by CNVs in the four epilepsy types. We observed that genetic generalized epilepsy and non-acquired focal epilepsy formed disease modules. In summary, we show that in all common epilepsy types, 1.5-3\% of patients carry epilepsy-associated CNVs. The characteristics of risk CNVs vary tremendously across and within epilepsy types. Thus, we advocate genome-wide genomic testing to identify all disease-associated types of CNVs.

}, keywords = {DNA Copy Number Variations, Epilepsy, Female, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male}, issn = {1460-2156}, doi = {10.1093/brain/awaa171}, author = {Niestroj, Lisa-Marie and Perez-Palma, Eduardo and Howrigan, Daniel P and Zhou, Yadi and Cheng, Feixiong and Saarentaus, Elmo and N{\"u}rnberg, Peter and Stevelink, Remi and Daly, Mark J and Palotie, Aarno and Lal, Dennis} } @article {863, title = {Genome-wide association meta-analysis for early age-related macular degeneration highlights novel loci and insights for advanced disease.}, journal = {BMC Med Genomics}, volume = {13}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 08 26}, pages = {120}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness. While around half of the genetic contribution to advanced AMD has been uncovered, little is known about the genetic architecture of early AMD.

METHODS: To identify genetic factors for early AMD, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analysis (14,034 cases, 91,214 controls, 11 sources of data including the International AMD Genomics Consortium, IAMDGC, and UK Biobank, UKBB). We ascertained early AMD via color fundus photographs by manual grading for 10 sources and via an automated machine learning approach for > 170,000 photographs from UKBB. We searched for early AMD loci via GWAS and via a candidate approach based on 14 previously suggested early AMD variants.

RESULTS: Altogether, we identified 10 independent loci with statistical significance for early AMD: (i) 8 from our GWAS with genome-wide significance (P~< 5 {\texttimes} 10), (ii) one previously suggested locus with experiment-wise significance (P~< 0.05/14) in our non-overlapping data and with genome-wide significance when combining the reported and our non-overlapping data (together 17,539 cases, 105,395 controls), and (iii) one further previously suggested locus with experiment-wise significance in our non-overlapping data. Of these 10 identified loci, 8 were novel and 2 known for early AMD. Most of the 10 loci overlapped with known advanced AMD loci (near ARMS2/HTRA1, CFH, C2, C3, CETP, TNFRSF10A, VEGFA, APOE), except two that have not yet been identified with statistical significance for any AMD. Among the 17 genes within these two loci, in-silico functional annotation suggested CD46 and TYR as the most likely responsible genes. Presence or absence of an early AMD effect distinguished the known pathways of advanced AMD genetics (complement/lipid pathways versus extracellular matrix metabolism).

CONCLUSIONS: Our GWAS on early AMD identified novel loci, highlighted shared and distinct genetics between early and advanced AMD and provides insights into AMD etiology. Our data provide a resource comparable in size to the existing IAMDGC data on advanced AMD genetics enabling a joint view. The biological relevance of this joint view is underscored by the ability of early AMD effects to differentiate the major pathways for advanced AMD.

}, keywords = {Case-Control Studies, Genetic Loci, Genetic Markers, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Macular Degeneration, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide}, issn = {1755-8794}, doi = {10.1186/s12920-020-00760-7}, author = {Winkler, Thomas W and Grassmann, Felix and Brandl, Caroline and Kiel, Christina and G{\"u}nther, Felix and Strunz, Tobias and Weidner, Lorraine and Zimmermann, Martina E and Korb, Christina A and Poplawski, Alicia and Schuster, Alexander K and M{\"u}ller-Nurasyid, Martina and Peters, Annette and Rauscher, Franziska G and Elze, Tobias and Horn, Katrin and Scholz, Markus and Ca{\~n}adas-Garre, Marisa and McKnight, Amy Jayne and Quinn, Nicola and Hogg, Ruth E and K{\"u}chenhoff, Helmut and Heid, Iris M and Stark, Klaus J and Weber, Bernhard H F} } @article {812, title = {A genome-wide case-only test for the detection of digenic inheritance in human exomes.}, journal = {Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A}, volume = {117}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 08 11}, pages = {19367-19375}, abstract = {

Whole-exome sequencing (WES) has facilitated the discovery of genetic lesions underlying monogenic disorders. Incomplete penetrance and variable expressivity suggest a contribution of additional genetic lesions to clinical manifestations and outcome. Some monogenic disorders may therefore actually be digenic. However, only a few digenic disorders have been reported, all discovered by candidate gene approaches applied to at least one locus. We propose here a two-locus genome-wide test for detecting digenic inheritance in WES data. This approach uses the gene as the unit of analysis and tests all pairs of genes to detect pairwise gene {\texttimes} gene interactions underlying disease. It is a case-only method, which has several advantages over classic case-control tests, in particular by avoiding recruitment of controls. Our simulation studies based on real WES data identified two major sources of type I error inflation in this case-only test: linkage disequilibrium and population stratification. Both were corrected by specific procedures. Moreover, our case-only approach is more powerful than the corresponding case-control test for detecting digenic interactions in various population stratification scenarios. Finally, we confirmed the potential of our unbiased, genome-wide approach by successfully identifying a previously reported digenic lesion in patients with craniosynostosis. Our case-only test is a powerful and timely tool for detecting digenic inheritance in WES data from patients.

}, keywords = {Craniosynostoses, Epistasis, Genetic, Exome, Genetic Linkage, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Humans, Models, Genetic, Multifactorial Inheritance, Whole Exome Sequencing}, issn = {1091-6490}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1920650117}, author = {Kerner, Gaspard and Bouaziz, Matthieu and Cobat, Aurelie and Bigio, Benedetta and Timberlake, Andrew T and Bustamante, Jacinta and Lifton, Richard P and Casanova, Jean-Laurent and Abel, Laurent} } @article {855, title = {Genome-Wide Polygenic Score, Clinical Risk Factors, and Long-Term Trajectories of Coronary Artery Disease.}, journal = {Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol}, volume = {40}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 11}, pages = {2738-2746}, abstract = {

OBJECTIVE: To determine the relationship of a genome-wide polygenic score for coronary artery disease (GPS) with lifetime trajectories of CAD risk, directly compare its predictive capacity to traditional risk factors, and assess its interplay with the Pooled Cohort Equations (PCE) clinical risk estimator. Approach and Results: We studied GPS in 28 556 middle-aged participants of the Malm{\"o} Diet and Cancer Study, of whom 4122 (14.4\%) developed CAD over a median follow-up of 21.3 years. A pronounced gradient in lifetime risk of CAD was observed-16\% for those in the lowest GPS decile to 48\% in the highest. We evaluated the discriminative capacity of the GPS-as assessed by change in the C-statistic from a baseline model including age and sex-among 5685 individuals with PCE risk estimates available. The increment for the GPS (+0.045, <0.001) was higher than for any of 11 traditional risk factors (range +0.007 to +0.032). Minimal correlation was observed between GPS and 10-year risk defined by the PCE (=0.03), and addition of GPS improved the C-statistic of the PCE model by 0.026. A significant gradient in lifetime risk was observed for the GPS, even among individuals within a given PCE clinical risk stratum. We replicated key findings-noting strikingly consistent results-in 325 003 participants of the UK Biobank.

CONCLUSIONS: GPS-a risk estimator available from birth-stratifies individuals into varying trajectories of clinical risk for CAD. Implementation of GPS may enable identification of high-risk individuals early in life, decades in advance of manifest risk factors or disease.

}, keywords = {Adult, Aged, Coronary Artery Disease, Female, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Heart Disease Risk Factors, Heredity, Humans, Incidence, Male, Middle Aged, Multifactorial Inheritance, Phenotype, Prognosis, Risk Assessment, Sweden, Time Factors, United Kingdom}, issn = {1524-4636}, doi = {10.1161/ATVBAHA.120.314856}, author = {Hindy, George and Aragam, Krishna G and Ng, Kenney and Chaffin, Mark and Lotta, Luca A and Baras, Aris and Drake, Isabel and Orho-Melander, Marju and Melander, Olle and Kathiresan, Sekar and Khera, Amit V} } @article {841, title = {The GTEx Consortium atlas of genetic regulatory effects across human tissues.}, journal = {Science}, volume = {369}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 09 11}, pages = {1318-1330}, abstract = {

The Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project was established to characterize genetic effects on the transcriptome across human tissues and to link these regulatory mechanisms to trait and disease associations. Here, we present analyses of the version 8 data, examining 15,201 RNA-sequencing samples from 49 tissues of 838 postmortem donors. We comprehensively characterize genetic associations for gene expression and splicing in cis and trans, showing that regulatory associations are found for almost all genes, and describe the underlying molecular mechanisms and their contribution to allelic heterogeneity and pleiotropy of complex traits. Leveraging the large diversity of tissues, we provide insights into the tissue specificity of genetic effects and show that cell type composition is a key factor in understanding gene regulatory mechanisms in human tissues.

}, keywords = {Datasets as Topic, Disease, Female, Gene Expression Regulation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male, Organ Specificity, Quantitative Trait Loci, Sequence Analysis, RNA}, issn = {1095-9203}, doi = {10.1126/science.aaz1776} } @article {837, title = {The impact of sex on gene expression across human tissues.}, journal = {Science}, volume = {369}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 09 11}, abstract = {

Many complex human phenotypes exhibit sex-differentiated characteristics. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying these differences remain largely unknown. We generated a catalog of sex differences in gene expression and in the genetic regulation of gene expression across 44 human tissue sources surveyed by the Genotype-Tissue Expression project (GTEx, v8 release). We demonstrate that sex influences gene expression levels and cellular composition of tissue samples across the human body. A total of 37\% of all genes exhibit sex-biased expression in at least one tissue. We identify cis expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) with sex-differentiated effects and characterize their cellular origin. By integrating sex-biased eQTLs with genome-wide association study data, we identify 58 gene-trait associations that are driven by genetic regulation of gene expression in a single sex. These findings provide an extensive characterization of sex differences in the human transcriptome and its genetic regulation.

}, keywords = {Chromosomes, Human, X, Disease, Epigenesis, Genetic, Female, Gene Expression, Gene Expression Regulation, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male, Organ Specificity, Promoter Regions, Genetic, Quantitative Trait Loci, Sex Characteristics, Sex Factors}, issn = {1095-9203}, doi = {10.1126/science.aba3066}, author = {Oliva, Meritxell and Mu{\~n}oz-Aguirre, Manuel and Kim-Hellmuth, Sarah and Wucher, Valentin and Gewirtz, Ariel D H and Cotter, Daniel J and Parsana, Princy and Kasela, Silva and Balliu, Brunilda and Vi{\~n}uela, Ana and Castel, Stephane E and Mohammadi, Pejman and Aguet, Francois and Zou, Yuxin and Khramtsova, Ekaterina A and Skol, Andrew D and Garrido-Mart{\'\i}n, Diego and Reverter, Ferran and Brown, Andrew and Evans, Patrick and Gamazon, Eric R and Payne, Anthony and Bonazzola, Rodrigo and Barbeira, Alvaro N and Hamel, Andrew R and Martinez-Perez, Angel and Soria, Jos{\'e} Manuel and Pierce, Brandon L and Stephens, Matthew and Eskin, Eleazar and Dermitzakis, Emmanouil T and Segr{\`e}, Ayellet V and Im, Hae Kyung and Engelhardt, Barbara E and Ardlie, Kristin G and Montgomery, Stephen B and Battle, Alexis J and Lappalainen, Tuuli and Guig{\'o}, Roderic and Stranger, Barbara E} } @article {784, title = {The mutational constraint spectrum quantified from variation in 141,456 humans.}, journal = {Nature}, volume = {581}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 05}, pages = {434-443}, abstract = {

Genetic variants that inactivate protein-coding genes are a powerful source of information about the phenotypic consequences of gene disruption: genes that are crucial for the function of an organism will be depleted of such variants in natural populations, whereas non-essential genes will tolerate their accumulation. However, predicted loss-of-function variants are enriched for annotation errors, and tend to be found at extremely low frequencies, so their analysis requires careful variant annotation and very large sample sizes. Here we describe the aggregation of 125,748 exomes and 15,708 genomes from human sequencing studies into the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD). We identify 443,769 high-confidence predicted loss-of-function variants in this cohort after filtering for artefacts caused by sequencing and annotation errors. Using an improved model of human mutation rates, we classify human protein-coding genes along a spectrum that represents tolerance to inactivation, validate this classification using data from model organisms and engineered human cells, and show that it can be used to improve the power of gene discovery for both common and rare diseases.

}, keywords = {Adult, Brain, Cardiovascular Diseases, Cohort Studies, Databases, Genetic, Exome, Female, Genes, Essential, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genetic Variation, Genome, Human, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Loss of Function Mutation, Male, Mutation Rate, Proprotein Convertase 9, Reproducibility of Results, RNA, Messenger, Whole Exome Sequencing, Whole Genome Sequencing}, issn = {1476-4687}, doi = {10.1038/s41586-020-2308-7}, author = {Karczewski, Konrad J and Francioli, Laurent C and Tiao, Grace and Cummings, Beryl B and Alf{\"o}ldi, Jessica and Wang, Qingbo and Collins, Ryan L and Laricchia, Kristen M and Ganna, Andrea and Birnbaum, Daniel P and Gauthier, Laura D and Brand, Harrison and Solomonson, Matthew and Watts, Nicholas A and Rhodes, Daniel and Singer-Berk, Moriel and England, Eleina M and Seaby, Eleanor G and Kosmicki, Jack A and Walters, Raymond K and Tashman, Katherine and Farjoun, Yossi and Banks, Eric and Poterba, Timothy and Wang, Arcturus and Seed, Cotton and Whiffin, Nicola and Chong, Jessica X and Samocha, Kaitlin E and Pierce-Hoffman, Emma and Zappala, Zachary and O{\textquoteright}Donnell-Luria, Anne H and Minikel, Eric Vallabh and Weisburd, Ben and Lek, Monkol and Ware, James S and Vittal, Christopher and Armean, Irina M and Bergelson, Louis and Cibulskis, Kristian and Connolly, Kristen M and Covarrubias, Miguel and Donnelly, Stacey and Ferriera, Steven and Gabriel, Stacey and Gentry, Jeff and Gupta, Namrata and Jeandet, Thibault and Kaplan, Diane and Llanwarne, Christopher and Munshi, Ruchi and Novod, Sam and Petrillo, Nikelle and Roazen, David and Ruano-Rubio, Valentin and Saltzman, Andrea and Schleicher, Molly and Soto, Jose and Tibbetts, Kathleen and Tolonen, Charlotte and Wade, Gordon and Talkowski, Michael E and Neale, Benjamin M and Daly, Mark J and MacArthur, Daniel G} } @article {875, title = {Non-parametric Polygenic Risk Prediction via Partitioned GWAS Summary Statistics.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {107}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 07 02}, pages = {46-59}, abstract = {

In complex trait genetics, the ability to predict phenotype from genotype is the ultimate measure of our understanding of genetic architecture underlying the heritability of a trait. A complete understanding of the genetic basis of a trait should allow for predictive methods with accuracies approaching the trait{\textquoteright}s heritability. The highly polygenic nature of quantitative traits and most common phenotypes has motivated the development of statistical strategies focused on combining myriad individually non-significant genetic effects. Now that predictive accuracies are improving, there is a growing interest in the practical utility of such methods for predicting risk of common diseases responsive to early therapeutic intervention. However, existing methods require individual-level genotypes or depend on accurately specifying the genetic architecture underlying each disease to be predicted. Here, we propose a polygenic risk prediction method that does not require explicitly modeling any underlying genetic architecture. We start with summary statistics in the form of SNP effect sizes from a large GWAS cohort. We then remove the correlation structure across summary statistics arising due to linkage disequilibrium and apply a piecewise linear interpolation on conditional mean effects. In both simulated and real datasets, this new non-parametric shrinkage (NPS) method can reliably allow for linkage disequilibrium in summary statistics of 5 million dense genome-wide markers and consistently improves prediction accuracy. We show that NPS improves the identification of groups at high risk for breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and coronary heart disease, all of which have available early intervention or prevention treatments.

}, keywords = {Aged, Cohort Studies, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Female, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotype, Humans, Linkage Disequilibrium, Male, Middle Aged, Models, Genetic, Multifactorial Inheritance, Phenotype, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Quantitative Trait Loci}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2020.05.004}, author = {Chun, Sung and Imakaev, Maxim and Hui, Daniel and Patsopoulos, Nikolaos A and Neale, Benjamin M and Kathiresan, Sekar and Stitziel, Nathan O and Sunyaev, Shamil R} } @article {849, title = {The Parkinson{\textquoteright}s Disease Genome-Wide Association Study Locus Browser.}, journal = {Mov Disord}, volume = {35}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 11}, pages = {2056-2067}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Parkinson{\textquoteright}s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease with an often complex component identifiable by genome-wide association studies. The most recent large-scale PD genome-wide association studies have identified more than 90 independent risk variants for PD risk and progression across more than 80 genomic regions. One major challenge in current genomics is the identification of the causal gene(s) and variant(s) at each genome-wide association study locus. The objective of the current study was to create a tool that would display data for relevant PD risk loci and provide guidance with the prioritization of causal genes and potential mechanisms at each locus.

METHODS: We included all significant genome-wide signals from multiple recent PD genome-wide association studies including themost recent PD risk genome-wide association study, age-at-onset genome-wide association study, progression genome-wide association study, and Asian population PD risk genome-wide association study. We gathered data for all genes 1 Mb up and downstream of each variant to allow users to assess which gene(s) are most associated with the variant of interest based on a set of self-ranked criteria. Multiple databases were queried for each gene to collect additional causal data.

RESULTS: We created a PD genome-wide association study browser tool (https://pdgenetics.shinyapps.io/GWASBrowser/) to assist the PD research community with the prioritization of genes for follow-up functional studies to identify potential therapeutic targets.

CONCLUSIONS: Our PD genome-wide association study browser tool provides users with a useful method of identifying potential causal genes at all known PD risk loci from large-scale PD genome-wide association studies. We plan to update this tool with new relevant data as sample sizes increase and new PD risk loci are discovered. {\textcopyright} 2020 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society. This article has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.

}, keywords = {Age of Onset, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Neurodegenerative Diseases, Parkinson Disease, Risk Factors}, issn = {1531-8257}, doi = {10.1002/mds.28197}, author = {Grenn, Francis P and Kim, Jonggeol J and Makarious, Mary B and Iwaki, Hirotaka and Illarionova, Anastasia and Brolin, Kajsa and Kluss, Jillian H and Schumacher-Schuh, Artur F and Leonard, Hampton and Faghri, Faraz and Billingsley, Kimberley and Krohn, Lynne and Hall, Ashley and Diez-Fairen, Monica and Peri{\~n}{\'a}n, Maria Teresa and Foo, Jia Nee and Sandor, Cynthia and Webber, Caleb and Fiske, Brian K and Gibbs, J Raphael and Nalls, Mike A and Singleton, Andrew B and Bandres-Ciga, Sara and Reed, Xylena and Blauwendraat, Cornelis} } @article {853, title = {Validation of a Genome-Wide Polygenic~Score for Coronary Artery~Disease in~South Asians.}, journal = {J Am Coll Cardiol}, volume = {76}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 08 11}, pages = {703-714}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Genome-wide polygenic scores (GPS) integrate information from many common DNA variants into a single number. Because rates of coronary artery disease (CAD) are substantially higher among South Asians, a GPS to identify high-risk individuals may be particularly useful in this population.

OBJECTIVES: This analysis used summary statistics from a prior genome-wide association study to derive a new GPS for South Asians.

METHODS: This GPS was validated in 7,244 South Asian UK Biobank participants and tested in 491 individuals from a case-control study in Bangladesh. Next, a static ancestry and GPS reference distribution was built using whole-genome sequencing from 1,522 Indian individuals, and a framework was tested for projecting individuals onto this static ancestry and GPS reference distribution using 1,800 CAD cases and 1,163 control subjects newly recruited in India.

RESULTS: The GPS, containing 6,630,150 common DNA variants, had an odds ratio (OR) per SD of 1.58 in South Asian UK Biobank participants and 1.60 in the Bangladeshi study (p~<~0.001 for each). Next, individuals of the Indian case-control study were projected onto static reference distributions, observing an OR/SD of 1.66 (p~<~0.001). Compared with the middle quintile, risk for CAD was most pronounced for those in the top 5\% of the GPS distribution-ORs of 4.16, 2.46, and 3.22 in the South Asian UK Biobank, Bangladeshi, and Indian studies, respectively (p~<~0.05 for each).

CONCLUSIONS: The new GPS has been developed and tested using 3 distinct South Asian studies, and provides a generalizable framework for ancestry-specific GPS assessment.

}, keywords = {Adult, Aged, Bangladesh, Case-Control Studies, Coronary Artery Disease, Female, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, India, Male, Middle Aged, Multifactorial Inheritance}, issn = {1558-3597}, doi = {10.1016/j.jacc.2020.06.024}, author = {Wang, Minxian and Menon, Ramesh and Mishra, Sanghamitra and Patel, Aniruddh P and Chaffin, Mark and Tanneeru, Deepak and Deshmukh, Manjari and Mathew, Oshin and Apte, Sanika and Devanboo, Christina S and Sundaram, Sumathi and Lakshmipathy, Praveena and Murugan, Sakthivel and Sharma, Krishna Kumar and Rajendran, Karthikeyan and Santhosh, Sam and Thachathodiyl, Rajesh and Ahamed, Hisham and Balegadde, Aniketh Vijay and Alexander, Thomas and Swaminathan, Krishnan and Gupta, Rajeev and Mullasari, Ajit S and Sigamani, Alben and Kanchi, Muralidhar and Peterson, Andrew S and Butterworth, Adam S and Danesh, John and Di Angelantonio, Emanuele and Naheed, Aliya and Inouye, Michael and Chowdhury, Rajiv and Vedam, Ramprasad L and Kathiresan, Sekar and Gupta, Ravi and Khera, Amit V} } @article {526, title = {The coexistence of copy number variations (CNVs) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at a locus can result in distorted calculations of the significance in associating SNPs to disease.}, journal = {Hum Genet}, volume = {137}, year = {2018}, month = {2018 Jul}, pages = {553-567}, abstract = {

With the recent advance in genome-wide association studies (GWAS), disease-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number variants (CNVs) have been extensively reported. Accordingly, the issue of incorrect identification of recombination events that can induce the distortion of multi-allelic or hemizygous variants has received more attention. However, the potential distorted calculation bias or significance of a detected association in a GWAS due to the coexistence of CNVs and SNPs in the same genomic region may remain under-recognized. Here we performed the association study within a congenital scoliosis (CS) cohort whose genetic etiology was recently elucidated as a compound inheritance model, including mostly one rare variant deletion CNV null allele and one common variant non-coding hypomorphic haplotype of the TBX6 gene. We demonstrated that the existence of a deletion in TBX6 led to an overestimation of the contribution of the SNPs on the hypomorphic allele. Furthermore, we generalized a model to explain the calculation bias, or distorted significance calculation for an association study, that can be {\textquoteright}induced{\textquoteright} by CNVs at a locus. Meanwhile, overlapping between the disease-associated SNPs from published GWAS and common CNVs (overlap 10\%) and pathogenic/likely pathogenic CNVs (overlap 99.69\%) was significantly higher than the random distribution (p < 1 {\texttimes} 10 and p = 0.034, respectively), indicating that such co-existence of CNV and SNV alleles might generally influence data interpretation and potential outcomes of a GWAS. We also verified and assessed the influence of colocalizing CNVs to the detection sensitivity of disease-associated SNP variant alleles in another adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) genome-wide association study. We proposed that detecting co-existent CNVs when evaluating the association signals between SNPs and disease traits could improve genetic model analyses and better integrate GWAS with robust Mendelian principles.

}, keywords = {Adolescent, Congenital Abnormalities, DNA Copy Number Variations, Female, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome, Human, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genomics, Genotype, Haplotypes, Humans, Phenotype, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Scoliosis}, issn = {1432-1203}, doi = {10.1007/s00439-018-1910-3}, author = {Liu, Jiaqi and Zhou, Yangzhong and Liu, Sen and Song, Xiaofei and Yang, Xin-Zhuang and Fan, Yanhui and Chen, Weisheng and Akdemir, Zeynep Coban and Yan, Zihui and Zuo, Yuzhi and Du, Renqian and Liu, Zhenlei and Yuan, Bo and Zhao, Sen and Liu, Gang and Chen, Yixin and Zhao, Yanxue and Lin, Mao and Zhu, Qiankun and Niu, Yuchen and Liu, Pengfei and Ikegawa, Shiro and Song, You-Qiang and Posey, Jennifer E and Qiu, Guixing and Zhang, Feng and Wu, Zhihong and Lupski, James R and Wu, Nan} } @article {347, title = {Choices for return of primary and secondary genomic research results of 790 members of families with Mendelian disease.}, journal = {Eur J Hum Genet}, volume = {25}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 05}, pages = {530-537}, abstract = {

Although consensus is building that primary (PR) and secondary findings (SF) from genomic research should be offered to participants under some circumstances, data describing (1) actual choices of study participants and (2) factors associated with these choices are limited, hampering study planning. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of choices made for return of PR and SF during informed consent by members of the first 247 families (790 individuals) enrolled in the Baylor-Hopkins Center for Mendelian Genomics, a genome sequencing study. Most (619; 78.3\%) chose to receive SF and PR, 66 (8.4\%) chose PR only, 65 (8.2\%) wanted no results, and 40 (5.1\%) chose SF only. Choosing SF was associated with an established clinical diagnosis in the proband (87.8 vs 79\%, P=0.009) and European ancestry (EA) (87.7 vs 73\%, P<0.008). Participants of non-European ancestry (NEA) were as likely as those of EA to choose SF when consented by a genetic counselor (GC) (82\% NEA vs 88.3\% EA, P=0.09) but significantly less likely when consented by a physician (67.4\% NEA vs 85.4\% EA, P=0.001). Controlling for proband diagnosis, individuals of NEA were 2.13-fold (95\% CI: 1.11-4.08) more likely to choose SF when consented by a GC rather than a physician. Participants of NEA were 3-fold more likely than those of EA to decline all study results (14.7\% NEA vs 5.4\% EA, P<0.008). In this ethnically diverse population, whereas most participants desired PR and SF, more than 20\% declined some or all results, highlighting the importance of research participant choice.

}, keywords = {Databases, Genetic, Female, Genetic Diseases, Inborn, Genome, Human, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male, Pedigree, Research Subjects}, issn = {1476-5438}, doi = {10.1038/ejhg.2017.21}, author = {Fiallos, Katie and Applegate, Carolyn and Mathews, Debra Jh and Bollinger, Juli and Bergner, Amanda L and James, Cynthia A} } @article {637, title = {Clinically severe CACNA1A alleles affect synaptic function and neurodegeneration differentially.}, journal = {PLoS Genet}, volume = {13}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 Jul}, pages = {e1006905}, abstract = {

Dominant mutations in CACNA1A, encoding the α-1A subunit of the neuronal P/Q type voltage-dependent Ca2+ channel, can cause diverse neurological phenotypes. Rare cases of markedly severe early onset developmental delay and congenital ataxia can be due to de novo CACNA1A missense alleles, with variants affecting the S4 transmembrane segments of the channel, some of which are reported to be loss-of-function. Exome sequencing in five individuals with severe early onset ataxia identified one novel variant (p.R1673P), in a girl with global developmental delay and progressive cerebellar atrophy, and a recurrent, de novo p.R1664Q variant, in four individuals with global developmental delay, hypotonia, and ophthalmologic abnormalities. Given the severity of these phenotypes we explored their functional impact in Drosophila. We previously generated null and partial loss-of-function alleles of cac, the homolog of CACNA1A in Drosophila. Here, we created transgenic wild type and mutant genomic rescue constructs with the two noted conserved point mutations. The p.R1673P mutant failed to rescue cac lethality, displayed a gain-of-function phenotype in electroretinograms (ERG) recorded from mutant clones, and evolved a neurodegenerative phenotype in aging flies, based on ERGs and transmission electron microscopy. In contrast, the p.R1664Q variant exhibited loss of function and failed to develop a neurodegenerative phenotype. Hence, the novel R1673P allele produces neurodegenerative phenotypes in flies and human, likely due to a toxic gain of function.

}, keywords = {Alleles, Animals, Animals, Genetically Modified, Calcium Channels, Cerebellar Ataxia, Child, Child, Preschool, Drosophila melanogaster, Female, Genome, Human, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male, Microscopy, Electron, Transmission, Mutation, Missense, Neurodegenerative Diseases, Neuroimaging, Phenotype, Point Mutation}, issn = {1553-7404}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pgen.1006905}, author = {Luo, Xi and Rosenfeld, Jill A and Yamamoto, Shinya and Harel, Tamar and Zuo, Zhongyuan and Hall, Melissa and Wierenga, Klaas J and Pastore, Matthew T and Bartholomew, Dennis and Delgado, Mauricio R and Rotenberg, Joshua and Lewis, Richard Alan and Emrick, Lisa and Bacino, Carlos A and Eldomery, Mohammad K and Coban Akdemir, Zeynep and Xia, Fan and Yang, Yaping and Lalani, Seema R and Lotze, Timothy and Lupski, James R and Lee, Brendan and Bellen, Hugo J and Wangler, Michael F} } @article {426, title = {Contribution of rare inherited and de novo variants in 2,871 congenital heart disease probands.}, journal = {Nat Genet}, volume = {49}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 Nov}, pages = {1593-1601}, abstract = {

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of mortality from birth defects. Here, exome sequencing of a single cohort of 2,871 CHD probands, including 2,645 parent-offspring trios, implicated rare inherited mutations in 1.8\%, including a recessive founder mutation in GDF1 accounting for \~{}5\% of severe CHD in Ashkenazim, recessive genotypes in MYH6 accounting for \~{}11\% of Shone complex, and dominant FLT4 mutations accounting for 2.3\% of Tetralogy of Fallot. De novo mutations (DNMs) accounted for 8\% of cases, including \~{}3\% of isolated CHD patients and \~{}28\% with both neurodevelopmental and extra-cardiac congenital anomalies. Seven genes surpassed thresholds for genome-wide significance, and 12 genes not previously implicated in CHD had >70\% probability of being disease related. DNMs in \~{}440 genes were inferred to contribute to CHD. Striking overlap between genes with damaging DNMs in probands with CHD and autism was also found.

}, keywords = {Adult, Autistic Disorder, Cardiac Myosins, Case-Control Studies, Child, Exome, Female, Gene Expression, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Growth Differentiation Factor 1, Heart Defects, Congenital, Heterozygote, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Homozygote, Humans, Male, Mutation, Myosin Heavy Chains, Pedigree, Risk, Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor-3}, issn = {1546-1718}, doi = {10.1038/ng.3970}, author = {Jin, Sheng Chih and Homsy, Jason and Zaidi, Samir and Lu, Qiongshi and Morton, Sarah and DePalma, Steven R and Zeng, Xue and Qi, Hongjian and Chang, Weni and Sierant, Michael C and Hung, Wei-Chien and Haider, Shozeb and Zhang, Junhui and Knight, James and Bjornson, Robert D and Castaldi, Christopher and Tikhonoa, Irina R and Bilguvar, Kaya and Mane, Shrikant M and Sanders, Stephan J and Mital, Seema and Russell, Mark W and Gaynor, J William and Deanfield, John and Giardini, Alessandro and Porter, George A and Srivastava, Deepak and Lo, Cecelia W and Shen, Yufeng and Watkins, W Scott and Yandell, Mark and Yost, H Joseph and Tristani-Firouzi, Martin and Newburger, Jane W and Roberts, Amy E and Kim, Richard and Zhao, Hongyu and Kaltman, Jonathan R and Goldmuntz, Elizabeth and Chung, Wendy K and Seidman, Jonathan G and Gelb, Bruce D and Seidman, Christine E and Lifton, Richard P and Brueckner, Martina} } @article {423, title = {Exome-wide Association Study Identifies GREB1L Mutations in Congenital Kidney Malformations.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {101}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 Nov 02}, pages = {789-802}, abstract = {

Renal agenesis and hypodysplasia (RHD) are major causes of pediatric chronic kidney disease and are highly genetically heterogeneous. We conducted whole-exome sequencing in 202 case subjects with RHD and identified diagnostic mutations in genes known to be associated with RHD in 7/202 case subjects. In an additional affected individual with RHD and a congenital heart defect, we found a homozygous loss-of-function (LOF) variant in SLIT3, recapitulating phenotypes reported with Slit3 inactivation in the mouse. To identify genes associated with RHD, we performed an exome-wide association study with 195 unresolved case subjects and 6,905 control subjects. The top signal resided in GREB1L, a gene implicated previously in Hoxb1 and Shha signaling in zebrafish. The significance of the association, which was p = 2.0~{\texttimes} 10 for novel LOF, increased to p = 4.1~{\texttimes} 10 for LOF and deleterious missense variants combined, and augmented further after accounting for segregation and de novo inheritance of rare variants (joint p = 2.3~{\texttimes} 10). Finally, CRISPR/Cas9 disruption or knockdown of greb1l in zebrafish caused specific pronephric defects, which were rescued by wild-type human GREB1L mRNA, but not mRNA containing alleles identified in case subjects. Together, our study provides insight into the genetic landscape of kidney malformations in humans, presents multiple candidates, and identifies SLIT3 and GREB1L as genes implicated in the pathogenesis of RHD.

}, keywords = {Alleles, Animals, Case-Control Studies, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, Congenital Abnormalities, Exome, Female, Genetic Heterogeneity, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotype, Heredity, Homozygote, Humans, Kidney, Kidney Diseases, Male, Membrane Proteins, Mice, Mutation, Neoplasm Proteins, Phenotype, RNA, Long Noncoding, Urinary Tract, Urogenital Abnormalities, Zebrafish}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.09.018}, author = {Sanna-Cherchi, Simone and Khan, Kamal and Westland, Rik and Krithivasan, Priya and Fievet, Lorraine and Rasouly, Hila Milo and Ionita-Laza, Iuliana and Capone, Valentina P and Fasel, David A and Kiryluk, Krzysztof and Kamalakaran, Sitharthan and Bodria, Monica and Otto, Edgar A and Sampson, Matthew G and Gillies, Christopher E and Vega-Warner, Virginia and Vukojevic, Katarina and Pediaditakis, Igor and Makar, Gabriel S and Mitrotti, Adele and Verbitsky, Miguel and Martino, Jeremiah and Liu, Qingxue and Na, Young-Ji and Goj, Vinicio and Ardissino, Gianluigi and Gigante, Maddalena and Gesualdo, Loreto and Janezcko, Magdalena and Zaniew, Marcin and Mendelsohn, Cathy Lee and Shril, Shirlee and Hildebrandt, Friedhelm and van Wijk, Joanna A E and Arapovic, Adela and Saraga, Marijan and Allegri, Landino and Izzi, Claudia and Scolari, Francesco and Tasic, Velibor and Ghiggeri, Gian Marco and Latos-Bielenska, Anna and Materna-Kiryluk, Anna and Mane, Shrikant and Goldstein, David B and Lifton, Richard P and Katsanis, Nicholas and Davis, Erica E and Gharavi, Ali G} } @article {398, title = {Genome-Wide Association Studies and Meta-Analyses for Congenital Heart Defects.}, journal = {Circ Cardiovasc Genet}, volume = {10}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 Jun}, pages = {e001449}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Maternal and inherited (ie, case) genetic factors likely contribute to the pathogenesis of congenital heart defects, but it is unclear whether individual common variants confer a large risk.

METHODS AND RESULTS: To evaluate the relationship between individual common maternal/inherited genotypes and risk for heart defects, we conducted genome-wide association studies in 5 cohorts. Three cohorts were recruited at the Children{\textquoteright}s Hospital of Philadelphia: 670 conotruncal heart defect (CTD) case-parent trios, 317 left ventricular obstructive tract defect (LVOTD) case-parent trios, and 406 CTD cases (n=406) and 2976 pediatric controls. Two cohorts were recruited through the Pediatric Cardiac Genomics Consortium: 355 CTD trios and 192 LVOTD trios. We also conducted meta-analyses using the genome-wide association study results from the CTD cohorts, the LVOTD cohorts, and from the combined CTD and LVOTD cohorts. In the individual genome-wide association studies, several genome-wide significant associations (<=5{\texttimes}10) were observed. In our meta-analyses, 1 genome-wide significant association was detected: the case genotype for rs72820264, an intragenetic single-nucleotide polymorphism associated with LVOTDs (=2.1{\texttimes}10).

CONCLUSIONS: We identified 1 novel candidate region associated with LVOTDs and report on several additional regions with suggestive evidence for association with CTD and LVOTD. These studies were constrained by the relatively small samples sizes and thus have limited power to detect small to moderate associations. Approaches that minimize the multiple testing burden (eg, gene or pathway based) may, therefore, be required to uncover common variants contributing to the risk of these relatively rare conditions.

}, keywords = {Cohort Studies, Databases, Factual, Female, Gene Frequency, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotype, Heart Defects, Congenital, Humans, Introns, Male, Membrane Proteins, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide}, issn = {1942-3268}, doi = {10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.116.001449}, author = {Agopian, A J and Goldmuntz, Elizabeth and Hakonarson, Hakon and Sewda, Anshuman and Taylor, Deanne and Mitchell, Laura E} } @article {453, title = {High Rate of Recurrent De Novo Mutations in Developmental and Epileptic Encephalopathies.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {101}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 Nov 02}, pages = {664-685}, abstract = {

Developmental and epileptic encephalopathy (DEE) is a group of conditions characterized by the co-occurrence of epilepsy and intellectual disability (ID), typically with developmental plateauing or regression associated with frequent epileptiform activity. The cause of DEE remains unknown in the majority of cases. We performed whole-genome sequencing (WGS) in 197 individuals with unexplained DEE and pharmaco-resistant seizures and in their unaffected parents. We focused our attention on de novo mutations (DNMs) and identified candidate genes containing such variants. We sought to identify additional subjects with DNMs in these genes by performing targeted sequencing in another series of individuals with DEE and by mining various sequencing datasets. We also performed meta-analyses to document enrichment of DNMs in candidate genes by leveraging our WGS dataset with those of several DEE and ID series. By combining these strategies, we were able to provide a causal link between DEE and the following genes: NTRK2, GABRB2, CLTC, DHDDS, NUS1, RAB11A, GABBR2, and SNAP25. Overall, we established a molecular diagnosis in 63/197 (32\%) individuals in our WGS series. The main cause of DEE in these individuals was de novo point mutations (53/63 solved cases), followed by inherited mutations (6/63 solved cases) and de novo CNVs (4/63 solved cases). De novo missense variants explained a larger proportion of individuals in our series than in other series that were primarily ascertained because of ID. Moreover, these DNMs were more frequently recurrent than those identified in ID series. These observations indicate that the genetic landscape of DEE might be different from that of ID without epilepsy.

}, keywords = {Brain Diseases, Child, Child, Preschool, Epilepsy, Female, Genome, Human, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Intellectual Disability, Male, Mutation, Recurrence, Seizures}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.09.008}, author = {Hamdan, Fadi F and Myers, Candace T and Cossette, Patrick and Lemay, Philippe and Spiegelman, Dan and Laporte, Alexandre Dionne and Nassif, Christina and Diallo, Ousmane and Monlong, Jean and Cadieux-Dion, Maxime and Dobrzeniecka, Sylvia and Meloche, Caroline and Retterer, Kyle and Cho, Megan T and Rosenfeld, Jill A and Bi, Weimin and Massicotte, Christine and Miguet, Marguerite and Brunga, Ledia and Regan, Brigid M and Mo, Kelly and Tam, Cory and Schneider, Amy and Hollingsworth, Georgie and FitzPatrick, David R and Donaldson, Alan and Canham, Natalie and Blair, Edward and Kerr, Bronwyn and Fry, Andrew E and Thomas, Rhys H and Shelagh, Joss and Hurst, Jane A and Brittain, Helen and Blyth, Moira and Lebel, Robert Roger and Gerkes, Erica H and Davis-Keppen, Laura and Stein, Quinn and Chung, Wendy K and Dorison, Sara J and Benke, Paul J and Fassi, Emily and Corsten-Janssen, Nicole and Kamsteeg, Erik-Jan and Mau-Them, Frederic T and Bruel, Ange-Line and Verloes, Alain and {\~O}unap, Katrin and Wojcik, Monica H and Albert, Dara V F and Venkateswaran, Sunita and Ware, Tyson and Jones, Dean and Liu, Yu-Chi and Mohammad, Shekeeb S and Bizargity, Peyman and Bacino, Carlos A and Leuzzi, Vincenzo and Martinelli, Simone and Dallapiccola, Bruno and Tartaglia, Marco and Blumkin, Lubov and Wierenga, Klaas J and Purcarin, Gabriela and O{\textquoteright}Byrne, James J and Stockler, Sylvia and Lehman, Anna and Keren, Boris and Nougues, Marie-Christine and Mignot, Cyril and Auvin, St{\'e}phane and Nava, Caroline and Hiatt, Susan M and Bebin, Martina and Shao, Yunru and Scaglia, Fernando and Lalani, Seema R and Frye, Richard E and Jarjour, Imad T and Jacques, St{\'e}phanie and Boucher, Renee-Myriam and Riou, Emilie and Srour, Myriam and Carmant, Lionel and Lortie, Anne and Major, Philippe and Diadori, Paola and Dubeau, Fran{\c c}ois and D{\textquoteright}Anjou, Guy and Bourque, Guillaume and Berkovic, Samuel F and Sadleir, Lynette G and Campeau, Philippe M and Kibar, Zoha and Lafreni{\`e}re, Ronald G and Girard, Simon L and Mercimek-Mahmutoglu, Saadet and Boelman, Cyrus and Rouleau, Guy A and Scheffer, Ingrid E and Mefford, Heather C and Andrade, Danielle M and Rossignol, Elsa and Minassian, Berge A and Michaud, Jacques L} } @article {402, title = {Isolated polycystic liver disease genes define effectors of polycystin-1 function.}, journal = {J Clin Invest}, volume = {127}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 May 01}, pages = {1772-1785}, abstract = {

Dominantly inherited isolated polycystic liver disease (PCLD) consists of liver cysts that are radiologically and pathologically identical to those seen in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, but without clinically relevant kidney cysts. The causative genes are known for fewer than 40\% of PCLD index cases. Here, we have used whole exome sequencing in a discovery cohort of 102 unrelated patients who were excluded for mutations in the 2 most common PCLD genes, PRKCSH and SEC63, to identify heterozygous loss-of-function mutations in 3 additional genes, ALG8, GANAB, and SEC61B. Similarly to PRKCSH and SEC63, these genes encode proteins that are integral to the protein biogenesis pathway in the endoplasmic reticulum. We inactivated these candidate genes in cell line models to show that loss of function of each results in defective maturation and trafficking of polycystin-1, the central determinant of cyst pathogenesis. Despite acting in a common pathway, each PCLD gene product demonstrated distinct effects on polycystin-1 biogenesis. We also found enrichment on a genome-wide basis of heterozygous mutations in the autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease gene PKHD1, indicating that adult PKHD1 carriers can present with clinical PCLD. These findings define genetic and biochemical modulators of polycystin-1 function and provide a more complete definition of the spectrum of dominant human polycystic diseases.

}, keywords = {Adult, Animals, Cell Line, Transformed, Cysts, Endoplasmic Reticulum, Female, Genome-Wide Association Study, Glucosidases, Glucosyltransferases, Heterozygote, Humans, Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins, Liver Diseases, Male, Membrane Proteins, Mice, Mutation, SEC Translocation Channels, TRPP Cation Channels}, issn = {1558-8238}, doi = {10.1172/JCI90129}, author = {Besse, Whitney and Dong, Ke and Choi, Jungmin and Punia, Sohan and Fedeles, Sorin V and Choi, Murim and Gallagher, Anna-Rachel and Huang, Emily B and Gulati, Ashima and Knight, James and Mane, Shrikant and Tahvanainen, Esa and Tahvanainen, Pia and Sanna-Cherchi, Simone and Lifton, Richard P and Watnick, Terry and Pei, York P and Torres, Vicente E and Somlo, Stefan} } @article {336, title = {Multilevel analyses of SCN5A mutations in arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy suggest non-canonical mechanisms for disease pathogenesis.}, journal = {Cardiovasc Res}, volume = {113}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 01}, pages = {102-111}, abstract = {

AIMS: Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia/Cardiomyopathy (ARVD/C) is often associated with desmosomal mutations. Recent studies suggest an interaction between the desmosome and sodium channel protein Na1.5. We aimed to determine the prevalence and biophysical properties of mutations in SCN5A (the gene encoding Na1.5) in ARVD/C.

METHODS AND RESULTS: We performed whole-exome sequencing in six ARVD/C patients (33\% male, 38.2 {\textpm} 12.1 years) without a desmosomal mutation. We found a rare missense variant (p.Arg1898His; R1898H) in SCN5A in one patient. We generated induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hIPSC-CMs) from the patient{\textquoteright}s peripheral blood mononuclear cells. The variant was then corrected (R1898R) using Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/Cas9 technology, allowing us to study the impact of the R1898H substitution in the same cellular background. Whole-cell patch clamping revealed a 36\% reduction in peak sodium current (P = 0.002); super-resolution fluorescence microscopy showed reduced abundance of Na1.5 (P = 0.005) and N-Cadherin (P = 0.026) clusters at the intercalated disc. Subsequently, we sequenced SCN5A in an additional 281 ARVD/C patients (60\% male, 34.8 {\textpm} 13.7 years, 52\% desmosomal mutation-carriers). Five (1.8\%) subjects harboured a putatively pathogenic SCN5A variant (p.Tyr416Cys, p.Leu729del, p.Arg1623Ter, p.Ser1787Asn, and p.Val2016Met). SCN5A variants were associated with prolonged QRS duration (119 {\textpm} 15 vs. 94 {\textpm} 14 ms, P < 0.01) and all SCN5A variant carriers had major structural abnormalities on cardiac imaging.

CONCLUSIONS: Almost 2\% of ARVD/C patients harbour rare SCN5A variants. For one of these variants, we demonstrated reduced sodium current, Na1.5 and N-Cadherin clusters at junctional sites. This suggests that Na1.5 is in a functional complex with adhesion molecules, and reveals potential non-canonical mechanisms by which Na1.5 dysfunction causes cardiomyopathy.

}, keywords = {Adult, Antigens, CD, Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia, Cadherins, Cell Differentiation, CRISPR-Cas Systems, DNA Mutational Analysis, Electrocardiography, Exome, Female, Gene Editing, Gene Frequency, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, HEK293 Cells, Humans, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Membrane Potentials, Middle Aged, Multilevel Analysis, Mutation, Missense, Myocytes, Cardiac, NAV1.5 Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel, Netherlands, Phenotype, Sodium, Transfection, United States, Young Adult}, issn = {1755-3245}, doi = {10.1093/cvr/cvw234}, author = {Te Riele, Anneline S J M and Agullo-Pascual, Esperanza and James, Cynthia A and Leo-Macias, Alejandra and Cerrone, Marina and Zhang, Mingliang and Lin, Xianming and Lin, Bin and Sobreira, Nara L and Amat-Alarcon, Nuria and Marsman, Roos F and Murray, Brittney and Tichnell, Crystal and van der Heijden, Jeroen F and Dooijes, Dennis and van Veen, Toon A B and Tandri, Harikrishna and Fowler, Steven J and Hauer, Richard N W and Tomaselli, Gordon and van den Berg, Maarten P and Taylor, Matthew R G and Brun, Francesca and Sinagra, Gianfranco and Wilde, Arthur A M and Mestroni, Luisa and Bezzina, Connie R and Calkins, Hugh and Peter van Tintelen, J and Bu, Lei and Delmar, Mario and Judge, Daniel P} } @article {334, title = {A Recurrent De Novo Variant in NACC1 Causes a Syndrome Characterized by Infantile Epilepsy, Cataracts, and Profound Developmental Delay.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {100}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 Feb 02}, pages = {343-351}, abstract = {

Whole-exome sequencing (WES) has increasingly enabled new pathogenic gene variant identification for undiagnosed neurodevelopmental disorders and provided insights into both gene function and disease biology. Here, we describe seven children with a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by microcephaly, profound developmental delays and/or intellectual disability, cataracts, severe epilepsy including infantile spasms, irritability, failure to thrive, and stereotypic hand movements. Brain imaging in these individuals reveals delay in myelination and cerebral atrophy. We observe an identical recurrent de novo heterozygous c.892C>T (p.Arg298Trp) variant in the nucleus accumbens associated 1 (NACC1) gene in seven affected individuals. One of the seven individuals is mosaic for this variant. NACC1 encodes a transcriptional repressor implicated in gene expression and has not previously been associated with germline disorders. The probability of finding the same missense NACC1 variant by chance in 7 out of 17,228 individuals who~underwent WES for diagnoses of neurodevelopmental phenotypes is extremely small and achieves genome-wide significance (p~= 1.25~{\texttimes} 10). Selective constraint against missense variants in NACC1 makes this excess of an identical missense variant in all seven individuals more remarkable. Our findings are consistent with a germline recurrent mutational hotspot associated with an allele-specific neurodevelopmental phenotype in NACC1.

}, keywords = {Alleles, Amino Acid Sequence, Brain, Cataract, Child, Child, Preschool, Female, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Infant, Intellectual Disability, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Microcephaly, Mutation, Missense, Neoplasm Proteins, Pedigree, Phenotype, Repressor Proteins, Spasms, Infantile}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.12.013}, author = {Schoch, Kelly and Meng, Linyan and Szelinger, Szabolcs and Bearden, David R and Stray-Pedersen, Asbjorg and Busk, Oyvind L and Stong, Nicholas and Liston, Eriskay and Cohn, Ronald D and Scaglia, Fernando and Rosenfeld, Jill A and Tarpinian, Jennifer and Skraban, Cara M and Deardorff, Matthew A and Friedman, Jeremy N and Akdemir, Zeynep Coban and Walley, Nicole and Mikati, Mohamad A and Kranz, Peter G and Jasien, Joan and McConkie-Rosell, Allyn and McDonald, Marie and Wechsler, Stephanie Burns and Freemark, Michael and Kansagra, Sujay and Freedman, Sharon and Bali, Deeksha and Millan, Francisca and Bale, Sherri and Nelson, Stanley F and Lee, Hane and Dorrani, Naghmeh and Goldstein, David B and Xiao, Rui and Yang, Yaping and Posey, Jennifer E and Martinez-Agosto, Julian A and Lupski, James R and Wangler, Michael F and Shashi, Vandana} } @article {40, title = {Characterization of Greater Middle Eastern genetic variation for enhanced disease gene discovery.}, journal = {Nat Genet}, volume = {48}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 09}, pages = {1071-6}, abstract = {

The Greater Middle East (GME) has been a central hub of human migration and population admixture. The tradition of consanguinity, variably practiced in the Persian Gulf region, North Africa, and Central Asia, has resulted in an elevated burden of recessive disease. Here we generated a whole-exome GME variome from 1,111 unrelated subjects. We detected substantial diversity and admixture in continental and subregional populations, corresponding to several ancient founder populations with little evidence of bottlenecks. Measured consanguinity rates were an order of magnitude above those in other sampled populations, and the GME population exhibited an increased burden of runs of homozygosity (ROHs) but showed no evidence for reduced burden of deleterious variation due to classically theorized {\textquoteright}genetic purging{\textquoteright}. Applying this database to unsolved recessive conditions in the GME population reduced the number of potential disease-causing variants by four- to sevenfold. These results show variegated genetic architecture in GME populations and support future human genetic discoveries in Mendelian and population genetics.

}, keywords = {Asian Continental Ancestry Group, Cohort Studies, Consanguinity, Disease, European Continental Ancestry Group, Exome, Genes, Recessive, Genetic Markers, Genetic Variation, Genetics, Population, Genome, Human, Genome-Wide Association Study, Homozygote, Human Migration, Humans, Middle East}, issn = {1546-1718}, doi = {10.1038/ng.3592}, author = {Scott, Eric M and Halees, Anason and Itan, Yuval and Spencer, Emily G and He, Yupeng and Azab, Mostafa Abdellateef and Gabriel, Stacey B and Belkadi, Aziz and Boisson, Bertrand and Abel, Laurent and Clark, Andrew G and Alkuraya, Fowzan S and Casanova, Jean-Laurent and Gleeson, Joseph G} } @article {98, title = {Exome Sequencing Analysis in Severe, Early-Onset Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.}, journal = {Am J Respir Crit Care Med}, volume = {193}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 06 15}, pages = {1353-63}, abstract = {

RATIONALE: Genomic regions identified by genome-wide association studies explain only a small fraction of heritability for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency shows that rare coding variants of large effect also influence COPD susceptibility. We hypothesized that exome sequencing in families identified through a proband with severe, early-onset COPD would identify additional rare genetic determinants of large effect.

OBJECTIVES: To identify rare genetic determinants of severe COPD.

METHODS: We applied filtering approaches to identify potential causal variants for COPD in whole exomes from 347 subjects in 49 extended pedigrees from the Boston Early-Onset COPD Study. We assessed the power of this approach under different levels of genetic heterogeneity using simulations. We tested genes identified in these families using gene-based association tests in exomes of 204 cases with severe COPD and 195 resistant smokers from the COPDGene study. In addition, we examined previously described loci associated with COPD using these datasets.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We identified 69 genes with predicted deleterious nonsynonymous, stop, or splice variants that segregated with severe COPD in at least two pedigrees. Four genes (DNAH8, ALCAM, RARS, and GBF1) also demonstrated an increase in rare nonsynonymous, stop, and/or splice mutations in cases compared with resistant smokers from the COPDGene study; however, these results were not statistically significant. We demonstrate the limitations of the power of this approach under genetic heterogeneity through simulation.

CONCLUSIONS: Rare deleterious coding variants may increase risk for COPD, but multiple genes likely contribute to COPD susceptibility.

}, keywords = {Adult, alpha 1-Antitrypsin Deficiency, Boston, Exome, Female, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive, Severity of Illness Index}, issn = {1535-4970}, doi = {10.1164/rccm.201506-1223OC}, author = {Qiao, Dandi and Lange, Christoph and Beaty, Terri H and Crapo, James D and Barnes, Kathleen C and Bamshad, Michael and Hersh, Craig P and Morrow, Jarrett and Pinto-Plata, Victor M and Marchetti, Nathaniel and Bueno, Raphael and Celli, Bartolome R and Criner, Gerald J and Silverman, Edwin K and Cho, Michael H} } @article {71, title = {Genome-Wide Association and Exome Sequencing Study of Language Disorder in an Isolated Population.}, journal = {Pediatrics}, volume = {137}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 04}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a highly prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder associated with negative outcomes in different domains; the etiology of DLD is unknown. To investigate the genetic underpinnings of DLD, we performed genome-wide association and whole exome sequencing studies in a geographically isolated population with a substantially elevated prevalence of the disorder (ie, the AZ sample).

METHODS: DNA samples were collected from 359 individuals for the genome-wide association study and from 12 severely affected individuals for whole exome sequencing. Multifaceted phenotypes, representing major domains of expressive language functioning, were derived from collected speech samples.

RESULTS: Gene-based analyses revealed a significant association between SETBP1 and complexity of linguistic output (P = 5.47 {\texttimes} 10(-7)). The analysis of exome variants revealed coding sequence variants in 14 genes, most of which play a role in neural development. Targeted enrichment analysis implicated myocyte enhancer factor-2 (MEF2)-regulated genes in DLD in the AZ population. The main findings were successfully replicated in an independent cohort of children at risk for related disorders (n = 372).

CONCLUSIONS: MEF2-regulated pathways were identified as potential candidate pathways in the etiology of DLD. Several genes (including the candidate SETBP1 and other MEF2-related genes) seem to jointly influence certain, but not all, facets of the DLD phenotype. Even when genetic and environmental diversity is reduced, DLD is best conceptualized as etiologically complex. Future research should establish whether the signals detected in the AZ population can be replicated in other samples and languages and provide further characterization of the identified pathway.

}, keywords = {Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Child, Child, Preschool, Exome, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Language Disorders, Middle Aged, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Russia, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Young Adult}, issn = {1098-4275}, doi = {10.1542/peds.2015-2469}, author = {Kornilov, Sergey A and Rakhlin, Natalia and Koposov, Roman and Lee, Maria and Yrigollen, Carolyn and {\c C}a{\u g}layan, Ahmet Okay and Magnuson, James S and Mane, Shrikant and Chang, Joseph T and Grigorenko, Elena L} } @article {13, title = {A genome-wide association study of congenital cardiovascular left-sided lesions shows association with a locus on chromosome 20.}, journal = {Hum Mol Genet}, volume = {25}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 06 01}, pages = {2331-2341}, abstract = {

Congenital heart defects involving left-sided lesions (LSLs) are relatively common birth defects with substantial morbidity and mortality. Previous studies have suggested a high heritability with a complex genetic architecture, such that only a few LSL loci have been identified. We performed a genome-wide case-control association study to address the role of common variants using a discovery cohort of 778 cases and 2756 controls. We identified a genome-wide significant association mapping to a 200 kb region on chromosome 20q11 [P= 1.72 {\texttimes} 10 for rs3746446; imputed Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) rs6088703 P= 3.01 {\texttimes} 10, odds ratio (OR)= 1.6 for both]. This result was supported by transmission disequilibrium analyses using a subset of 541 case families (lowest P in region= 4.51 {\texttimes} 10, OR= 1.5). Replication in a cohort of 367 LSL cases and 5159 controls showed nominal association (P= 0.03 for rs3746446) resulting in P= 9.49 {\texttimes} 10 for rs3746446 upon meta-analysis of the combined cohorts. In addition, a group of seven SNPs on chromosome 1q21.3 met threshold for suggestive association (lowest P= 9.35 {\texttimes} 10 for rs12045807). Both regions include genes involved in cardiac development-MYH7B/miR499A on chromosome 20 and CTSK, CTSS and ARNT on chromosome 1. Genome-wide heritability analysis using case-control genotyped SNPs suggested that the mean heritability of LSLs attributable to common variants is moderately high ([Formula: see text] range= 0.26-0.34) and consistent with previous assertions. These results provide evidence for the role of common variation in LSLs, proffer new genes as potential biological candidates, and give further insight to the complex genetic architecture of congenital heart disease.

}, keywords = {Chromosome Mapping, Chromosomes, Human, Pair 20, Cohort Studies, Female, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotype, Heart Defects, Congenital, Heart Ventricles, Humans, Male, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide}, issn = {1460-2083}, doi = {10.1093/hmg/ddw071}, author = {Hanchard, Neil A and Swaminathan, Shanker and Bucasas, Kristine and Furthner, Dieter and Fernbach, Susan and Azamian, Mahshid S and Wang, Xueqing and Lewin, Mark and Towbin, Jeffrey A and D{\textquoteright}Alessandro, Lisa C A and Morris, Shaine A and Dreyer, William and Denfield, Susan and Ayres, Nancy A and Franklin, Wayne J and Justino, Henri and Lantin-Hermoso, M Regina and Ocampo, Elena C and Santos, Alexia B and Parekh, Dhaval and Moodie, Douglas and Jeewa, Aamir and Lawrence, Emily and Allen, Hugh D and Penny, Daniel J and Fraser, Charles D and Lupski, James R and Popoola, Mojisola and Wadhwa, Lalita and Brook, J David and Bu{\textquoteright}Lock, Frances A and Bhattacharya, Shoumo and Lalani, Seema R and Zender, Gloria A and Fitzgerald-Butt, Sara M and Bowman, Jessica and Corsmeier, Don and White, Peter and Lecerf, Kelsey and Zapata, Gladys and Hernandez, Patricia and Goodship, Judith A and Garg, Vidu and Keavney, Bernard D and Leal, Suzanne M and Cordell, Heather J and Belmont, John W and McBride, Kim L} } @article {95, title = {Molecular etiology of arthrogryposis in multiple families of mostly Turkish origin.}, journal = {J Clin Invest}, volume = {126}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Feb}, pages = {762-78}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Arthrogryposis, defined as congenital joint contractures in 2 or more body areas, is a clinical sign rather than a specific disease diagnosis. To date, more than 400 different disorders have been described that present with arthrogryposis, and variants of more than 220 genes have been associated with these disorders; however, the underlying molecular etiology remains unknown in the considerable majority of these cases.

METHODS: We performed whole exome sequencing (WES) of 52 patients with clinical presentation of arthrogryposis from 48 different families.

RESULTS: Affected individuals from 17 families (35.4\%) had variants in known arthrogryposis-associated genes, including homozygous variants of cholinergic γ nicotinic receptor (CHRNG, 6 subjects) and endothelin converting enzyme-like 1 (ECEL1, 4 subjects). Deleterious variants in candidate arthrogryposis-causing genes (fibrillin 3 [FBN3], myosin IXA [MYO9A], and pleckstrin and Sec7 domain containing 3 [PSD3]) were identified in 3 families (6.2\%). Moreover, in 8 families with a homozygous mutation in an arthrogryposis-associated gene, we identified a second locus with either a homozygous or compound heterozygous variant in a candidate gene (myosin binding protein C, fast type [MYBPC2] and vacuolar protein sorting 8 [VPS8], 2 families, 4.2\%) or in another disease-associated genes (6 families, 12.5\%), indicating a potential mutational burden contributing to disease expression.

CONCLUSION: In 58.3\% of families, the arthrogryposis manifestation could be explained by a molecular diagnosis; however, the molecular etiology in subjects from 20 families remained unsolved by WES. Only 5 of these 20 unrelated subjects had a clinical presentation consistent with amyoplasia; a phenotype not thought to be of genetic origin. Our results indicate that increased use of genome-wide technologies will provide opportunities to better understand genetic models for diseases and molecular mechanisms of genetically heterogeneous disorders, such as arthrogryposis.

FUNDING: This work was supported in part by US National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) grant U54HG006542 to the Baylor-Hopkins Center for Mendelian Genomics, and US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) grant R01NS058529 to J.R. Lupski.

}, keywords = {Arthrogryposis, Exome, Family, Female, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male, Turkey}, issn = {1558-8238}, doi = {10.1172/JCI84457}, author = {Bayram, Yavuz and Karaca, Ender and Coban Akdemir, Zeynep and Yilmaz, Elif Ozdamar and Tayfun, Gulsen Akay and Aydin, Hatip and Torun, Deniz and Bozdogan, Sevcan Tug and Gezdirici, Alper and Isikay, Sedat and Atik, Mehmed M and Gambin, Tomasz and Harel, Tamar and El-Hattab, Ayman W and Charng, Wu-Lin and Pehlivan, Davut and Jhangiani, Shalini N and Muzny, Donna M and Karaman, Ali and Celik, Tamer and Yuregir, Ozge Ozalp and Yildirim, Timur and Bayhan, Ilhan A and Boerwinkle, Eric and Gibbs, Richard A and Elcioglu, Nursel and Tuysuz, Beyhan and Lupski, James R} } @article {455, title = {Variants in the Oxidoreductase PYROXD1 Cause Early-Onset Myopathy with Internalized Nuclei and Myofibrillar Disorganization.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {99}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Nov 03}, pages = {1086-1105}, abstract = {

This study establishes PYROXD1 variants as a cause of early-onset myopathy and uses biospecimens and cell lines, yeast, and zebrafish models to elucidate the fundamental role of PYROXD1 in skeletal muscle. Exome sequencing identified recessive variants in PYROXD1 in nine probands from five families. Affected individuals presented in infancy or childhood with slowly progressive proximal and distal weakness, facial weakness, nasal speech, swallowing difficulties, and normal to moderately elevated creatine kinase. Distinctive histopathology showed abundant internalized nuclei, myofibrillar disorganization, desmin-positive inclusions, and thickened Z-bands. PYROXD1 is a nuclear-cytoplasmic pyridine nucleotide-disulphide reductase (PNDR). PNDRs are flavoproteins (FAD-binding) and catalyze pyridine-nucleotide-dependent (NAD/NADH) reduction of thiol residues in other proteins. Complementation experiments in yeast lacking glutathione reductase glr1 show that human PYROXD1 has reductase activity that is strongly impaired by the disease-associated missense mutations. Immunolocalization studies in human muscle and zebrafish myofibers demonstrate that PYROXD1 localizes to the nucleus and to striated sarcomeric compartments. Zebrafish with ryroxD1 knock-down recapitulate features of PYROXD1 myopathy with sarcomeric disorganization, myofibrillar aggregates, and marked swimming defect. We characterize variants in the oxidoreductase PYROXD1 as a cause of early-onset myopathy with distinctive histopathology and introduce altered redox regulation as a primary cause of congenital muscle disease.

}, keywords = {Amino Acid Sequence, Animals, Cell Nucleus, Cercopithecus aethiops, Cohort Studies, COS Cells, Creatine Kinase, Cytoplasm, Distal Myopathies, ELAV-Like Protein 4, Female, Flavoproteins, Gene Deletion, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Glutathione Reductase, HEK293 Cells, Humans, Male, Muscle, Skeletal, Mutation, Missense, Myopathies, Structural, Congenital, Oxidoreductases, Pedigree, Protein Conformation, Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins, Zebrafish}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.09.005}, author = {O{\textquoteright}Grady, Gina L and Best, Heather A and Sztal, Tamar E and Schartner, Vanessa and Sanjuan-Vazquez, Myriam and Donkervoort, Sandra and Abath Neto, Osorio and Sutton, Roger Bryan and Ilkovski, Biljana and Romero, Norma Beatriz and Stojkovic, Tanya and Dastgir, Jahannaz and Waddell, Leigh B and Boland, Anne and Hu, Ying and Williams, Caitlin and Ruparelia, Avnika A and Maisonobe, Thierry and Peduto, Anthony J and Reddel, Stephen W and Lek, Monkol and Tukiainen, Taru and Cummings, Beryl B and Joshi, Himanshu and Nectoux, Juliette and Brammah, Susan and Deleuze, Jean-Fran{\c c}ois and Ing, Viola Oorschot and Ramm, Georg and Ardicli, Didem and Nowak, Kristen J and Talim, Beril and Topaloglu, Haluk and Laing, Nigel G and North, Kathryn N and MacArthur, Daniel G and Friant, Sylvie and Clarke, Nigel F and Bryson-Richardson, Robert J and B{\"o}nnemann, Carsten G and Laporte, Jocelyn and Cooper, Sandra T} } @article {88, title = {A visual and curatorial approach to clinical variant prioritization and disease gene discovery in genome-wide diagnostics.}, journal = {Genome Med}, volume = {8}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Feb 02}, pages = {13}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Genome-wide data are increasingly important in the clinical evaluation of human disease. However, the large number of variants observed in individual patients challenges the efficiency and accuracy of diagnostic review. Recent work has shown that systematic integration of clinical phenotype data with genotype information can improve diagnostic workflows and prioritization of filtered rare variants. We have developed visually interactive, analytically transparent analysis software that leverages existing disease catalogs, such as the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man database (OMIM) and the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO), to integrate patient phenotype and variant data into ranked diagnostic alternatives.

METHODS: Our tool, "OMIM Explorer" ( http://www.omimexplorer.com ), extends the biomedical application of semantic similarity methods beyond those reported in previous studies. The tool also provides a simple interface for translating free-text clinical notes into HPO terms, enabling clinical providers and geneticists to contribute phenotypes to the diagnostic process. The visual approach uses semantic similarity with multidimensional scaling to collapse high-dimensional phenotype and genotype data from an individual into a graphical format that contextualizes the patient within a low-dimensional disease map. The map proposes a differential diagnosis and algorithmically suggests potential alternatives for phenotype queries--in essence, generating a computationally assisted differential diagnosis informed by the individual{\textquoteright}s personal genome. Visual interactivity allows the user to filter and update variant rankings by interacting with intermediate results. The tool also implements an adaptive approach for disease gene discovery based on patient phenotypes.

RESULTS: We retrospectively analyzed pilot cohort data from the Baylor Miraca Genetics Laboratory, demonstrating performance of the tool and workflow in the re-analysis of clinical exomes. Our tool assigned to clinically reported variants a median rank of 2, placing causal variants in the top 1 \% of filtered candidates across the 47 cohort cases with reported molecular diagnoses of exome variants in OMIM Morbidmap genes. Our tool outperformed Phen-Gen, eXtasy, PhenIX, PHIVE, and hiPHIVE in the prioritization of these clinically reported variants.

CONCLUSIONS: Our integrative paradigm can improve efficiency and, potentially, the quality of genomic medicine by more effectively utilizing available phenotype information, catalog data, and genomic knowledge.

}, keywords = {Computational Biology, Diagnosis, Differential, Disease, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Phenotype, Pilot Projects, Retrospective Studies, Software}, issn = {1756-994X}, doi = {10.1186/s13073-016-0261-8}, author = {James, Regis A and Campbell, Ian M and Chen, Edward S and Boone, Philip M and Rao, Mitchell A and Bainbridge, Matthew N and Lupski, James R and Yang, Yaping and Eng, Christine M and Posey, Jennifer E and Shaw, Chad A} } @article {168, title = {Exome sequencing reveals pathogenic mutations in 91 strains of mice with Mendelian disorders.}, journal = {Genome Res}, volume = {25}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 Jul}, pages = {948-57}, abstract = {

Spontaneously arising mouse mutations have served as the foundation for understanding gene function for more than 100 years. We have used exome sequencing in an effort to identify the causative mutations for 172 distinct, spontaneously arising mouse models of Mendelian disorders, including a broad range of clinically relevant phenotypes. To analyze the resulting data, we developed an analytics pipeline that is optimized for mouse exome data and a variation database that allows for reproducible, user-defined data mining as well as nomination of mutation candidates through knowledge-based integration of sample and variant data. Using these new tools, putative pathogenic mutations were identified for 91 (53\%) of the strains in our study. Despite the increased power offered by potentially unlimited pedigrees and controlled breeding, about half of our exome cases remained unsolved. Using a combination of manual analyses of exome alignments and whole-genome sequencing, we provide evidence that a large fraction of unsolved exome cases have underlying structural mutations. This result directly informs efforts to investigate the similar proportion of apparently Mendelian human phenotypes that are recalcitrant to exome sequencing.

}, keywords = {Animals, Exome, Female, Genetic Diseases, Inborn, Genetic Linkage, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genomics, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Male, Mice, Mutation, Phenotype, Reproducibility of Results}, issn = {1549-5469}, doi = {10.1101/gr.186882.114}, author = {Fairfield, Heather and Srivastava, Anuj and Ananda, Guruprasad and Liu, Rangjiao and Kircher, Martin and Lakshminarayana, Anuradha and Harris, Belinda S and Karst, Son Yong and Dionne, Louise A and Kane, Coleen C and Curtain, Michelle and Berry, Melissa L and Ward-Bailey, Patricia F and Greenstein, Ian and Byers, Candice and Czechanski, Anne and Sharp, Jocelyn and Palmer, Kristina and Gudis, Polyxeni and Martin, Whitney and Tadenev, Abby and Bogdanik, Laurent and Pratt, C Herbert and Chang, Bo and Schroeder, David G and Cox, Gregory A and Cliften, Paul and Milbrandt, Jeffrey and Murray, Stephen and Burgess, Robert and Bergstrom, David E and Donahue, Leah Rae and Hamamy, Hanan and Masri, Amira and Santoni, Federico A and Makrythanasis, Periklis and Antonarakis, Stylianos E and Shendure, Jay and Reinholdt, Laura G} } @article {159, title = {Functional genome-wide siRNA screen identifies KIAA0586 as mutated in Joubert syndrome.}, journal = {Elife}, volume = {4}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 May 30}, pages = {e06602}, abstract = {

Defective primary ciliogenesis or cilium stability forms the basis of human ciliopathies, including Joubert syndrome (JS), with defective cerebellar vermis development. We performed a high-content genome-wide small interfering RNA (siRNA) screen to identify genes regulating ciliogenesis as candidates for JS. We analyzed results with a supervised-learning approach, using SYSCILIA gold standard, Cildb3.0, a centriole siRNA screen and the GTex project, identifying 591 likely candidates. Intersection of this data with whole exome results from 145 individuals with unexplained JS identified six families with predominantly compound heterozygous mutations in KIAA0586. A c.428del base deletion in 0.1\% of the general population was found in trans with a second mutation in an additional set of 9 of 163 unexplained JS patients. KIAA0586 is an orthologue of chick Talpid3, required for ciliogenesis and Sonic hedgehog signaling. Our results uncover a relatively high frequency cause for JS and contribute a list of candidates for future gene discoveries in ciliopathies.

}, keywords = {Abnormalities, Multiple, Cell Cycle Proteins, Cerebellum, Eye Abnormalities, Gene Frequency, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genetic Testing, Genome-Wide Association Study, Heterozygote, Humans, Kidney Diseases, Cystic, Mutant Proteins, Retina, RNA, Small Interfering}, issn = {2050-084X}, doi = {10.7554/eLife.06602}, author = {Roosing, Susanne and Hofree, Matan and Kim, Sehyun and Scott, Eric and Copeland, Brett and Romani, Marta and Silhavy, Jennifer L and Rosti, Rasim O and Schroth, Jana and Mazza, Tommaso and Miccinilli, Elide and Zaki, Maha S and Swoboda, Kathryn J and Milisa-Drautz, Joanne and Dobyns, William B and Mikati, Mohamed A and {\.I}ncecik, Faruk and Azam, Matloob and Borgatti, Renato and Romaniello, Romina and Boustany, Rose-Mary and Clericuzio, Carol L and D{\textquoteright}Arrigo, Stefano and Str{\o}mme, Petter and Boltshauser, Eugen and Stanzial, Franco and Mirabelli-Badenier, Marisol and Moroni, Isabella and Bertini, Enrico and Emma, Francesco and Steinlin, Maja and Hildebrandt, Friedhelm and Johnson, Colin A and Freilinger, Michael and Vaux, Keith K and Gabriel, Stacey B and Aza-Blanc, Pedro and Heynen-Genel, Susanne and Ideker, Trey and Dynlacht, Brian D and Lee, Ji Eun and Valente, Enza Maria and Kim, Joon and Gleeson, Joseph G} } @article {182, title = {Genetic linkage analysis in the age of whole-genome sequencing.}, journal = {Nat Rev Genet}, volume = {16}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 May}, pages = {275-84}, abstract = {

For many years, linkage analysis was the primary tool used for the genetic mapping of Mendelian and complex traits with familial aggregation. Linkage analysis was largely supplanted by the wide adoption of genome-wide association studies (GWASs). However, with the recent increased use of whole-genome sequencing (WGS), linkage analysis is again emerging as an important and powerful analysis method for the identification of genes involved in disease aetiology, often in conjunction with WGS filtering approaches. Here, we review the principles of linkage analysis and provide practical guidelines for carrying out linkage studies using WGS data.

}, keywords = {Algorithms, Female, Genetic Linkage, Genome, Human, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotyping Techniques, Humans, Lod Score, Male, Pedigree, Penetrance, Phenotype, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Software}, issn = {1471-0064}, doi = {10.1038/nrg3908}, author = {Ott, Jurg and Wang, Jing and Leal, Suzanne M} } @article {198, title = {Global transcriptional disturbances underlie Cornelia de Lange syndrome and related phenotypes.}, journal = {J Clin Invest}, volume = {125}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 Feb}, pages = {636-51}, abstract = {

Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS) is a genetically heterogeneous disorder that presents with extensive phenotypic variability, including facial dysmorphism, developmental delay/intellectual disability (DD/ID), abnormal extremities, and hirsutism. About 65\% of patients harbor mutations in genes that encode subunits or regulators of the cohesin complex, including NIPBL, SMC1A, SMC3, RAD21, and HDAC8. Wiedemann-Steiner syndrome (WDSTS), which shares CdLS phenotypic features, is caused by mutations in lysine-specific methyltransferase 2A (KMT2A). Here, we performed whole-exome sequencing (WES) of 2 male siblings clinically diagnosed with WDSTS; this revealed a hemizygous, missense mutation in SMC1A that was predicted to be deleterious. Extensive clinical evaluation and WES of 32 Turkish patients clinically diagnosed with CdLS revealed the presence of a de novo heterozygous nonsense KMT2A mutation in 1 patient without characteristic WDSTS features. We also identified de novo heterozygous mutations in SMC3 or SMC1A that affected RNA splicing in 2 independent patients with combined CdLS and WDSTS features. Furthermore, in families from 2 separate world populations segregating an autosomal-recessive disorder with CdLS-like features, we identified homozygous mutations in TAF6, which encodes a core transcriptional regulatory pathway component. Together, our data, along with recent transcriptome studies, suggest that CdLS and related phenotypes may be "transcriptomopathies" rather than cohesinopathies.

}, keywords = {Adolescent, Adult, Cell Cycle Proteins, Child, Child, Preschool, Chondroitin Sulfate Proteoglycans, Chromosomal Proteins, Non-Histone, Codon, Nonsense, De Lange Syndrome, Exome, Exonucleases, Gene Expression Profiling, Gene Expression Regulation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Heterozygote, Histone Deacetylases, Histone-Lysine N-Methyltransferase, Humans, Infant, Male, Myeloid-Lymphoid Leukemia Protein, Phenotype, Proteins, Repressor Proteins, Transcriptome}, issn = {1558-8238}, doi = {10.1172/JCI77435}, author = {Yuan, Bo and Pehlivan, Davut and Karaca, Ender and Patel, Nisha and Charng, Wu-Lin and Gambin, Tomasz and Gonzaga-Jauregui, Claudia and Sutton, V Reid and Yesil, G{\"o}zde and Bozdogan, Sevcan Tug and Tos, Tulay and Koparir, Asuman and Koparir, Erkan and Beck, Christine R and Gu, Shen and Aslan, Huseyin and Yuregir, Ozge Ozalp and Al Rubeaan, Khalid and Alnaqeb, Dhekra and Alshammari, Muneera J and Bayram, Yavuz and Atik, Mehmed M and Aydin, Hatip and Geckinli, B Bilge and Seven, Mehmet and Ulucan, Hakan and Fenercioglu, Elif and Ozen, Mustafa and Jhangiani, Shalini and Muzny, Donna M and Boerwinkle, Eric and Tuysuz, Beyhan and Alkuraya, Fowzan S and Gibbs, Richard A and Lupski, James R} } @article {151, title = {Non-coding genetic variants in human disease.}, journal = {Hum Mol Genet}, volume = {24}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 Oct 15}, pages = {R102-10}, abstract = {

Genetic variants, including single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) and copy number variants (CNVs), in the non-coding regions of the human genome can play an important role in human traits and complex diseases. Most of the genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals map to non-coding regions and potentially point to non-coding variants, whereas their functional interpretation is challenging. In this review, we discuss the human non-coding variants and their contributions to human diseases in the following four parts. (i) Functional annotations of non-coding SNPs mapped by GWAS: we discuss recent progress revealing some of the molecular mechanisms for GWAS signals affecting gene function. (ii) Technical progress in interpretation of non-coding variants: we briefly describe some of the technologies for functional annotations of non-coding variants, including the methods for genome-wide mapping of chromatin interaction, computational tools for functional predictions and the new genome editing technologies useful for dissecting potential functional consequences of non-coding variants. (iii) Non-coding CNVs in human diseases: we review our emerging understanding the role of non-coding CNVs in human disease. (iv) Compound inheritance of large genomic deletions and non-coding variants: compound inheritance at a locus consisting of coding variants plus non-coding ones is described.

}, keywords = {Animals, Disease, DNA Copy Number Variations, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid}, issn = {1460-2083}, doi = {10.1093/hmg/ddv259}, author = {Zhang, Feng and Lupski, James R} } @article {148, title = {An siRNA-based functional genomics screen for the~identification of regulators of ciliogenesis and ciliopathy~genes.}, journal = {Nat Cell Biol}, volume = {17}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 Aug}, pages = {1074-1087}, abstract = {

Defects in primary cilium biogenesis underlie the ciliopathies, a growing group of genetic disorders. We describe a whole-genome siRNA-based reverse genetics screen for defects in biogenesis and/or maintenance of the primary cilium, obtaining a global resource. We identify 112 candidate ciliogenesis and ciliopathy genes, including 44 components of the ubiquitin-proteasome system, 12 G-protein-coupled receptors, and 3 pre-mRNA processing factors (PRPF6, PRPF8 and PRPF31) mutated in autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa. The PRPFs localize to the connecting cilium, and PRPF8- and PRPF31-mutated cells have ciliary defects. Combining the screen with exome sequencing data identified recessive mutations in PIBF1, also known as CEP90, and C21orf2, also known as LRRC76, as causes of the ciliopathies Joubert and Jeune syndromes. Biochemical approaches place C21orf2 within key ciliopathy-associated protein modules, offering an explanation for the skeletal and retinal involvement observed in individuals with C21orf2 variants. Our global, unbiased approaches provide insights into ciliogenesis complexity and identify roles for unanticipated pathways in human genetic disease.

}, keywords = {Abnormalities, Multiple, Animals, Caenorhabditis elegans, Cerebellar Diseases, Cerebellum, Cilia, Ciliary Motility Disorders, Databases, Genetic, Ellis-Van Creveld Syndrome, Eye Abnormalities, Genetic Markers, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genetic Testing, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genomics, HEK293 Cells, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Humans, Kidney Diseases, Cystic, Membrane Proteins, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Mice, Knockout, Mutation, Phenotype, Photoreceptor Cells, Pregnancy Proteins, Proteins, Reproducibility of Results, Retina, RNA Interference, Suppressor Factors, Immunologic, Transfection, Zebrafish}, issn = {1476-4679}, doi = {10.1038/ncb3201}, author = {Wheway, Gabrielle and Schmidts, Miriam and Mans, Dorus A and Szymanska, Katarzyna and Nguyen, Thanh-Minh T and Racher, Hilary and Phelps, Ian G and Toedt, Grischa and Kennedy, Julie and Wunderlich, Kirsten A and Sorusch, Nasrin and Abdelhamed, Zakia A and Natarajan, Subaashini and Herridge, Warren and van Reeuwijk, Jeroen and Horn, Nicola and Boldt, Karsten and Parry, David A and Letteboer, Stef J F and Roosing, Susanne and Adams, Matthew and Bell, Sandra M and Bond, Jacquelyn and Higgins, Julie and Morrison, Ewan E and Tomlinson, Darren C and Slaats, Gisela G and van Dam, Teunis J P and Huang, Lijia and Kessler, Kristin and Giessl, Andreas and Logan, Clare V and Boyle, Evan A and Shendure, Jay and Anazi, Shamsa and Aldahmesh, Mohammed and Al Hazzaa, Selwa and Hegele, Robert A and Ober, Carole and Frosk, Patrick and Mhanni, Aizeddin A and Chodirker, Bernard N and Chudley, Albert E and Lamont, Ryan and Bernier, Francois P and Beaulieu, Chandree L and Gordon, Paul and Pon, Richard T and Donahue, Clem and Barkovich, A James and Wolf, Louis and Toomes, Carmel and Thiel, Christian T and Boycott, Kym M and McKibbin, Martin and Inglehearn, Chris F and Stewart, Fiona and Omran, Heymut and Huynen, Martijn A and Sergouniotis, Panagiotis I and Alkuraya, Fowzan S and Parboosingh, Jillian S and Innes, A Micheil and Willoughby, Colin E and Giles, Rachel H and Webster, Andrew R and Ueffing, Marius and Blacque, Oliver and Gleeson, Joseph G and Wolfrum, Uwe and Beales, Philip L and Gibson, Toby and Doherty, Dan and Mitchison, Hannah M and Roepman, Ronald and Johnson, Colin A} } @article {218, title = {Whole-exome sequencing identifies homozygous GPR161 mutation in a family with pituitary stalk interruption syndrome.}, journal = {J Clin Endocrinol Metab}, volume = {100}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 Jan}, pages = {E140-7}, abstract = {

CONTEXT: Pituitary stalk interruption syndrome (PSIS) is a rare, congenital anomaly of the pituitary gland characterized by pituitary gland insufficiency, thin or discontinuous pituitary stalk, anterior pituitary hypoplasia, and ectopic positioning of the posterior pituitary gland (neurohypophysis). The clinical presentation of patients with PSIS varies from isolated growth hormone (GH) deficiency to combined pituitary insufficiency and accompanying extrapituitary findings. Mutations in HESX1, LHX4, OTX2, SOX3, and PROKR2 have been associated with PSIS in less than 5\% of cases; thus, the underlying genetic etiology for the vast majority of cases remains to be determined.

OBJECTIVE: We applied whole-exome sequencing (WES) to a consanguineous family with two affected siblings who have pituitary gland insufficiency and radiographic findings of hypoplastic (thin) pituitary gland, empty sella, ectopic neurohypophysis, and interrupted pitiutary stalk-characteristic clinical diagnostic findings of PSIS.

DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: WES was applied to two affected and one unaffected siblings.

RESULTS: WES of two affected and one unaffected sibling revealed a unique homozygous missense mutation in GPR161, which encodes the orphan G protein-coupled receptor 161, a protein responsible for transducing extracellular signals across the plasma membrane into the cell.

CONCLUSION: Mutations of GPR161 may be implicated as a potential novel cause of PSIS.

}, keywords = {Adolescent, Child, Preschool, Exome, Female, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Hypopituitarism, Mutation, Pituitary Gland, Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled}, issn = {1945-7197}, doi = {10.1210/jc.2014-1984}, author = {Karaca, Ender and Buyukkaya, Ramazan and Pehlivan, Davut and Charng, Wu-Lin and Yaykasli, Kursat O and Bayram, Yavuz and Gambin, Tomasz and Withers, Marjorie and Atik, Mehmed M and Arslanoglu, Ilknur and Bolu, Semih and Erdin, Serkan and Buyukkaya, Ayla and Yaykasli, Emine and Jhangiani, Shalini N and Muzny, Donna M and Gibbs, Richard A and Lupski, James R} } @article {266, title = {A general framework for estimating the relative pathogenicity of human genetic variants.}, journal = {Nat Genet}, volume = {46}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Mar}, pages = {310-5}, abstract = {

Current methods for annotating and interpreting human genetic variation tend to exploit a single information type (for example, conservation) and/or are restricted in scope (for example, to missense changes). Here we describe Combined Annotation-Dependent Depletion (CADD), a method for objectively integrating many diverse annotations into a single measure (C score) for each variant. We implement CADD as a support vector machine trained to differentiate 14.7 million high-frequency human-derived alleles from 14.7 million simulated variants. We precompute C scores for all 8.6 billion possible human single-nucleotide variants and enable scoring of short insertions-deletions. C scores correlate with allelic diversity, annotations of functionality, pathogenicity, disease severity, experimentally measured regulatory effects and complex trait associations, and they highly rank known pathogenic variants within individual genomes. The ability of CADD to prioritize functional, deleterious and pathogenic variants across many functional categories, effect sizes and genetic architectures is unmatched by any current single-annotation method.

}, keywords = {Genetic Variation, Genome, Human, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, INDEL Mutation, Models, Genetic, Molecular Sequence Annotation, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Selection, Genetic, Support Vector Machine}, issn = {1546-1718}, doi = {10.1038/ng.2892}, author = {Kircher, Martin and Witten, Daniela M and Jain, Preti and O{\textquoteright}Roak, Brian J and Cooper, Gregory M and Shendure, Jay} } @article {274, title = {Mutations in TBC1D24, a gene associated with epilepsy, also cause nonsyndromic deafness DFNB86.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {94}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Jan 02}, pages = {144-52}, abstract = {

Inherited deafness is clinically and genetically heterogeneous. We recently mapped DFNB86, a locus associated with nonsyndromic deafness, to chromosome 16p. In this study, whole-exome sequencing was performed with genomic DNA from affected individuals from three large consanguineous families in which markers linked to DFNB86 segregate with profound deafness. Analyses of these data revealed homozygous mutation c.208G>T (p.Asp70Tyr) or c.878G>C (p.Arg293Pro) in TBC1D24 as the underlying cause of deafness in the three families. Sanger sequence analysis of TBC1D24 in an additional large family in which deafness segregates with DFNB86 identified the c.208G>T (p.Asp70Tyr) substitution. These mutations affect TBC1D24 amino acid residues that are conserved in orthologs ranging from fruit fly to human. Neither variant was observed in databases of single-nucleotide variants or in 634 chromosomes from ethnically matched control subjects. TBC1D24 in the mouse inner ear was immunolocalized predominantly to spiral ganglion neurons, indicating that DFNB86 deafness might be an auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder. Previously, six recessive mutations in TBC1D24 were reported to cause seizures (hearing loss was not reported) ranging in severity from epilepsy with otherwise normal development to epileptic encephalopathy resulting in childhood death. Two of our four families in which deafness segregates with mutant alleles of TBC1D24 were available for neurological examination. Cosegregation of epilepsy and deafness was not observed in these two families. Although the causal relationship between genotype and phenotype is not presently understood, our findings, combined with published data, indicate that recessive alleles of TBC1D24 can cause either epilepsy or nonsyndromic deafness.

}, keywords = {Alleles, Amino Acid Sequence, Carrier Proteins, Chromosomes, Human, Pair 16, Consanguinity, Deafness, Epilepsy, Exome, Exons, Female, Genes, Recessive, Genetic Loci, Genome-Wide Association Study, Heterozygote, Homozygote, Humans, Male, Molecular Sequence Data, Mutation, Pakistan, Pedigree, Phenotype, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, RNA, Messenger, Sequence Analysis, DNA}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2013.12.004}, author = {Rehman, Atteeq U and Santos-Cortez, Regie Lyn P and Morell, Robert J and Drummond, Meghan C and Ito, Taku and Lee, Kwanghyuk and Khan, Asma A and Basra, Muhammad Asim R and Wasif, Naveed and Ayub, Muhammad and Ali, Rana A and Raza, Syed I and Nickerson, Deborah A and Shendure, Jay and Bamshad, Michael and Riazuddin, Saima and Billington, Neil and Khan, Shaheen N and Friedman, Penelope L and Griffith, Andrew J and Ahmad, Wasim and Riazuddin, Sheikh and Leal, Suzanne M and Friedman, Thomas B} } @article {303, title = {Attitudes of African Americans toward return of results from exome and whole genome sequencing.}, journal = {Am J Med Genet A}, volume = {161A}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 May}, pages = {1064-72}, abstract = {

Exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing (ES/WGS) present patients and research participants with the opportunity to benefit from a broad scope of genetic results of clinical and personal utility. Yet, this potential for benefit also risks disenfranchising populations such as African Americans (AAs) that are already underrepresented in genetic research and utilize genetic tests at lower rates than other populations. Understanding a diverse range of perspectives on consenting for ES/WGS and receiving ES/WGS results is necessary to ensure parity in genomic health care and research. We conducted a series of 13 focus groups (n = 76) to investigate if and how attitudes toward participation in ES/WGS research and return of results from ES/WGS differ between self-described AAs and non-AAs. The majority of both AAs and non-AAs were willing to participate in WGS studies and receive individual genetic results, but the fraction not interested in either was higher in AAs. This is due in part to different expectations of health benefits from ES/WGS and how results should be managed. Our results underscore the need to develop and test culturally tailored strategies for returning ES/WGS results to AAs.

}, keywords = {Adult, African Americans, Aged, Attitude, Exome, Female, Focus Groups, Genetic Research, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Surveys and Questionnaires, Washington}, issn = {1552-4833}, doi = {10.1002/ajmg.a.35914}, author = {Yu, Joon-Ho and Crouch, Julia and Jamal, Seema M and Tabor, Holly K and Bamshad, Michael J} } @article {280, title = {Effect of catechol-o-methyltransferase-gene (COMT) variants on experimental and acute postoperative pain in 1,000 women undergoing surgery for breast cancer.}, journal = {Anesthesiology}, volume = {119}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 Dec}, pages = {1422-33}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) metabolizes catecholamines in different tissues. Polymorphisms in COMT gene can attenuate COMT activity and increase sensitivity to pain. Human studies exploring the effect of COMT polymorphisms on pain sensitivity have mostly included small, heterogeneous samples and have ignored several important single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). This study examines the effect of COMT polymorphisms on experimental and postoperative pain phenotypes in a large ethnically homogeneous female patient cohort.

METHODS: Intensity of cold (+2-4{\textdegree}C) and heat (+48{\textdegree}C) pain and tolerance to cold pain were assessed in 1,000 patients scheduled for breast cancer surgery. Acute postoperative pain and oxycodone requirements were recorded. Twenty-two COMT SNPs were genotyped and their association with six pain phenotypes analyzed with linear regression.

RESULTS: There was no association between any of the tested pain phenotypes and SNP rs4680. The strongest association signals were seen between rs165774 and heat pain intensity as well as rs887200 and cold pain intensity. In both cases, minor allele carriers reported less pain. Neither of these results remained significant after strict multiple testing corrections. When analyzed further, the effect of rs887200 was, however, shown to be significant and consistent throughout the cold pressure test. No evidence of association between the SNPs and postoperative oxycodone consumption was found.

CONCLUSIONS: SNPs rs887200 and rs165774 located in the untranslated regions of the gene had the strongest effects on pain sensitivity. Their effect on pain is described here for the first time. These results should be confirmed in further studies and the potential functional mechanisms of the variants studied.

}, keywords = {Acute Pain, Adult, Aged, Analgesics, Opioid, Anesthesia, Breast Neoplasms, Catechol O-Methyltransferase, Cold Temperature, Databases, Genetic, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotype, Haplotypes, Hot Temperature, Humans, Middle Aged, Oxycodone, Pain Measurement, Pain, Postoperative, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide}, issn = {1528-1175}, doi = {10.1097/ALN.0000000000000013}, author = {Kambur, Oleg and Kaunisto, Mari A and Tikkanen, Emmi and Leal, Suzanne M and Ripatti, Samuli and Kalso, Eija A} } @article {295, title = {Mutations in DSTYK and dominant urinary tract malformations.}, journal = {N Engl J Med}, volume = {369}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 Aug 15}, pages = {621-9}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Congenital abnormalities of the kidney and the urinary tract are the most common cause of pediatric kidney failure. These disorders are highly heterogeneous, and the etiologic factors are poorly understood.

METHODS: We performed genomewide linkage analysis and whole-exome sequencing in a family with an autosomal dominant form of congenital abnormalities of the kidney or urinary tract (seven affected family members). We also performed a sequence analysis in 311 unrelated patients, as well as histologic and functional studies.

RESULTS: Linkage analysis identified five regions of the genome that were shared among all affected family members. Exome sequencing identified a single, rare, deleterious variant within these linkage intervals, a heterozygous splice-site mutation in the dual serine-threonine and tyrosine protein kinase gene (DSTYK). This variant, which resulted in aberrant splicing of messenger RNA, was present in all affected family members. Additional, independent DSTYK mutations, including nonsense and splice-site mutations, were detected in 7 of 311 unrelated patients. DSTYK is highly expressed in the maturing epithelia of all major organs, localizing to cell membranes. Knockdown in zebrafish resulted in developmental defects in multiple organs, which suggested loss of fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling. Consistent with this finding is the observation that DSTYK colocalizes with FGF receptors in the ureteric bud and metanephric mesenchyme. DSTYK knockdown in human embryonic kidney cells inhibited FGF-stimulated phosphorylation of extracellular-signal-regulated kinase (ERK), the principal signal downstream of receptor tyrosine kinases.

CONCLUSIONS: We detected independent DSTYK mutations in 2.3\% of patients with congenital abnormalities of the kidney or urinary tract, a finding that suggests that DSTYK is a major determinant of human urinary tract development, downstream of FGF signaling. (Funded by the National Institutes of Health and others.).

}, keywords = {Adult, Animals, Base Sequence, Child, Exome, Female, Gene Knockdown Techniques, Genetic Linkage, Genome-Wide Association Study, Heterozygote, Humans, Infant, Kidney, Male, Mice, Molecular Sequence Data, Mutation, Pedigree, Receptor-Interacting Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases, RNA, Small Interfering, Urinary Tract, Urogenital Abnormalities, Young Adult}, issn = {1533-4406}, doi = {10.1056/NEJMoa1214479}, author = {Sanna-Cherchi, Simone and Sampogna, Rosemary V and Papeta, Natalia and Burgess, Katelyn E and Nees, Shannon N and Perry, Brittany J and Choi, Murim and Bodria, Monica and Liu, Yan and Weng, Patricia L and Lozanovski, Vladimir J and Verbitsky, Miguel and Lugani, Francesca and Sterken, Roel and Paragas, Neal and Caridi, Gianluca and Carrea, Alba and Dagnino, Monica and Materna-Kiryluk, Anna and Santamaria, Giuseppe and Murtas, Corrado and Ristoska-Bojkovska, Nadica and Izzi, Claudia and Kacak, Nilgun and Bianco, Beatrice and Giberti, Stefania and Gigante, Maddalena and Piaggio, Giorgio and Gesualdo, Loreto and Vukic, Durdica Kosuljandic and Vukojevic, Katarina and Saraga-Babic, Mirna and Saraga, Marijan and Gucev, Zoran and Allegri, Landino and Latos-Bielenska, Anna and Casu, Domenica and State, Matthew and Scolari, Francesco and Ravazzolo, Roberto and Kiryluk, Krzysztof and Al-Awqati, Qais and D{\textquoteright}Agati, Vivette D and Drummond, Iain A and Tasic, Velibor and Lifton, Richard P and Ghiggeri, Gian Marco and Gharavi, Ali G} } @article {320, title = {Utilizing graph theory to select the largest set of unrelated individuals for genetic analysis.}, journal = {Genet Epidemiol}, volume = {37}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 Feb}, pages = {136-41}, abstract = {

Many statistical analyses of genetic data rely on the assumption of independence among samples. Consequently, relatedness is either modeled in the analysis or samples are removed to "clean" the data of any pairwise relatedness above a tolerated threshold. Current methods do not maximize the number of unrelated individuals retained for further analysis, and this is a needless loss of resources. We report a novel application of graph theory that identifies the maximum set of unrelated samples in any dataset given a user-defined threshold of relatedness as well as all networks of related samples. We have implemented this method into an open source program called Pedigree Reconstruction and Identification of a Maximum Unrelated Set, PRIMUS. We show that PRIMUS outperforms the three existing methods, allowing researchers to retain up to 50\% more unrelated samples. A unique strength of PRIMUS is its ability to weight the maximum clique selection using additional criteria (e.g. affected status and data missingness). PRIMUS is a permanent solution to identifying the maximum number of unrelated samples for a genetic analysis.

}, keywords = {Algorithms, Genome-Wide Association Study, HapMap Project, Humans, Models, Theoretical}, issn = {1098-2272}, doi = {10.1002/gepi.21684}, author = {Staples, Jeffrey and Nickerson, Deborah A and Below, Jennifer E} } @article {325, title = {The Centers for Mendelian Genomics: a new large-scale initiative to identify the genes underlying rare Mendelian conditions.}, journal = {Am J Med Genet A}, volume = {158A}, year = {2012}, month = {2012 Jul}, pages = {1523-5}, abstract = {

Next generation exome sequencing (ES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS) are new powerful tools for discovering the gene(s) that underlie Mendelian disorders. To accelerate these discoveries, the National Institutes of Health has established three Centers for Mendelian Genomics (CMGs): the Center for Mendelian Genomics at the University of Washington; the Center for Mendelian Genomics at Yale University; and the Baylor-Johns Hopkins Center for Mendelian Genomics at Baylor College of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University. The CMGs will provide ES/WGS and extensive analysis expertise at no cost to collaborating investigators where the causal gene(s) for a Mendelian phenotype has yet to be uncovered. Over the next few years and in collaboration with the global human genetics community, the CMGs hope to facilitate the identification of the genes underlying a very large fraction of all Mendelian disorders; see http://mendelian.org.

}, keywords = {Academies and Institutes, Genetic Diseases, Inborn, Genetics, Medical, Genome, Human, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genomics, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Humans}, issn = {1552-4833}, doi = {10.1002/ajmg.a.35470}, author = {Bamshad, Michael J and Shendure, Jay A and Valle, David and Hamosh, Ada and Lupski, James R and Gibbs, Richard A and Boerwinkle, Eric and Lifton, Richard P and Gerstein, Mark and G{\"u}nel, Murat and Mane, Shrikant and Nickerson, Deborah A} } @article {330, title = {Next generation analytic tools for large scale genetic epidemiology studies of complex diseases.}, journal = {Genet Epidemiol}, volume = {36}, year = {2012}, month = {2012 Jan}, pages = {22-35}, abstract = {

Over the past several years, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have succeeded in identifying hundreds of genetic markers associated with common diseases. However, most of these markers confer relatively small increments of risk and explain only a small proportion of familial clustering. To identify obstacles to future progress in genetic epidemiology research and provide recommendations to NIH for overcoming these barriers, the National Cancer Institute sponsored a workshop entitled "Next Generation Analytic Tools for Large-Scale Genetic Epidemiology Studies of Complex Diseases" on September 15-16, 2010. The goal of the workshop was to facilitate discussions on (1) statistical strategies and methods to efficiently identify genetic and environmental factors contributing to the risk of complex disease; and (2) how to develop, apply, and evaluate these strategies for the design, analysis, and interpretation of large-scale complex disease association studies in order to guide NIH in setting the future agenda in this area of research. The workshop was organized as a series of short presentations covering scientific (gene-gene and gene-environment interaction, complex phenotypes, and rare variants and next generation sequencing) and methodological (simulation modeling and computational resources and data management) topic areas. Specific needs to advance the field were identified during each session and are summarized.

}, keywords = {Data Mining, Gene-Environment Interaction, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Molecular Epidemiology, National Institutes of Health (U.S.), Neoplasms, Phenotype, United States}, issn = {1098-2272}, doi = {10.1002/gepi.20652}, author = {Mechanic, Leah E and Chen, Huann-Sheng and Amos, Christopher I and Chatterjee, Nilanjan and Cox, Nancy J and Divi, Rao L and Fan, Ruzong and Harris, Emily L and Jacobs, Kevin and Kraft, Peter and Leal, Suzanne M and McAllister, Kimberly and Moore, Jason H and Paltoo, Dina N and Province, Michael A and Ramos, Erin M and Ritchie, Marylyn D and Roeder, Kathryn and Schaid, Daniel J and Stephens, Matthew and Thomas, Duncan C and Weinberg, Clarice R and Witte, John S and Zhang, Shunpu and Z{\"o}llner, Sebastian and Feuer, Eric J and Gillanders, Elizabeth M} } @article {316, title = {A unified method for detecting secondary trait associations with rare variants: application to sequence data.}, journal = {PLoS Genet}, volume = {8}, year = {2012}, month = {2012}, pages = {e1003075}, abstract = {

Next-generation sequencing has made possible the detection of rare variant (RV) associations with quantitative traits (QT). Due to high sequencing cost, many studies can only sequence a modest number of selected samples with extreme QT. Therefore association testing in individual studies can be underpowered. Besides the primary trait, many clinically important secondary traits are often measured. It is highly beneficial if multiple studies can be jointly analyzed for detecting associations with commonly measured traits. However, analyzing secondary traits in selected samples can be biased if sample ascertainment is not properly modeled. Some methods exist for analyzing secondary traits in selected samples, where some burden tests can be implemented. However p-values can only be evaluated analytically via asymptotic approximations, which may not be accurate. Additionally, potentially more powerful sequence kernel association tests, variable selection-based methods, and burden tests that require permutations cannot be incorporated. To overcome these limitations, we developed a unified method for analyzing secondary trait associations with RVs (STAR) in selected samples, incorporating all RV tests. Statistical significance can be evaluated either through permutations or analytically. STAR makes it possible to apply more powerful RV tests to analyze secondary trait associations. It also enables jointly analyzing multiple cohorts ascertained under different study designs, which greatly boosts power. The performance of STAR and commonly used RV association tests were comprehensively evaluated using simulation studies. STAR was also implemented to analyze a dataset from the SardiNIA project where samples with extreme low-density lipoprotein levels were sequenced. A significant association between LDLR and systolic blood pressure was identified, which is supported by pharmacogenetic studies. In summary, for sequencing studies, STAR is an important tool for detecting secondary-trait RV associations.

}, keywords = {Blood Pressure, Computer Simulation, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Humans, Italy, Lipoproteins, LDL, Models, Genetic, Phenotype, Quantitative Trait Loci, Software}, issn = {1553-7404}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pgen.1003075}, author = {Liu, Dajiang J and Leal, Suzanne M} }