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- Albrecht, Eva, et al.
(författare)
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Telomere length in circulating leukocytes is associated with lung function and disease
- 2014
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Ingår i: European Respiratory Journal. - : European Respiratory Society (ERS). - 0903-1936 .- 1399-3003. ; 43:4, s. 983-992
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Several clinical studies suggest the involvement of premature ageing processes in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Using an epidemiological approach, we studied whether accelerated ageing indicated by telomere length, a marker of biological age, is associated with COPD and asthma, and whether intrinsic age-related processes contribute to the interindividual variability of lung function. Our meta-analysis of 14 studies included 934 COPD cases with 15 846 controls defined according to the Global Lungs Initiative (GLI) criteria (or 1189 COPD cases according to the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) criteria), 2834 asthma cases with 28 195 controls, and spirometric parameters (forced expiratory volume in is (FEV1), forced vital capacity (PVC) and FEV1/FVC) of 12 595 individuals. Associations with telomere length were tested by linear regression, adjusting for age, sex and smoking status. We observed negative associations between telomere length and asthma (beta= -0.0452, p= 0.024) as well as COPD (beta= -0.0982, p=0.001), with associations being stronger and more significant when using GLI criteria than those of GOLD. In both diseases, effects were stronger in females than males. The investigation of spirometric indices showed positive associations between telomere length and FEV1 (p=1.07 x 10(-7)), FVC (p=2.07 x 10(-5)), and FEV1/FVC (p =5.27 x 10(-3)). The effect was somewhat weaker in apparently healthy subjects than in COPD or asthma patients. Our results provide indirect evidence for the hypothesis that cellular senescence may contribute to the pathogenesis of COPD and asthma, and that lung function may reflect biological ageing primarily due to intrinsic processes, which are likely to be aggravated in lung diseases.
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| 2. |
- Loth, Daan W, et al.
(författare)
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Genome-wide association analysis identifies six new loci associated with forced vital capacity
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 46, s. 669-677
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Forced vital capacity (FVC), a spirometric measure of pulmonary function, reflects lung volume and is used to diagnose and monitor lung diseases. We performed genome-wide association study meta-analysis of FVC in 52,253 individuals from 26 studies and followed up the top associations in 32,917 additional individuals of European ancestry. We found six new regions associated at genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10(-8)) with FVC in or near EFEMP1, BMP6, MIR129-2-HSD17B12, PRDM11, WWOX and KCNJ2. Two loci previously associated with spirometric measures (GSTCD and PTCH1) were related to FVC. Newly implicated regions were followed up in samples from African-American, Korean, Chinese and Hispanic individuals. We detected transcripts for all six newly implicated genes in human lung tissue. The new loci may inform mechanisms involved in lung development and the pathogenesis of restrictive lung disease.
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| 3. |
- Ramasamy, Adaikalavan, et al.
(författare)
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Genome-Wide Association Studies of Asthma in Population-Based Cohorts Confirm Known and Suggested Loci and Identify an Additional Association near HLA
- 2012
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 7:9, s. e44008-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Rationale: Asthma has substantial morbidity and mortality and a strong genetic component, but identification of genetic risk factors is limited by availability of suitable studies. Objectives: To test if population-based cohorts with self-reported physician-diagnosed asthma and genome-wide association (GWA) data could be used to validate known associations with asthma and identify novel associations. Methods: The APCAT (Analysis in Population-based Cohorts of Asthma Traits) consortium consists of 1,716 individuals with asthma and 16,888 healthy controls from six European-descent population-based cohorts. We examined associations in APCAT of thirteen variants previously reported as genome-wide significant (P < 5x10(-8)) and three variants reported as suggestive (P < 5 x 10(-7)). We also searched for novel associations in APCAT (Stage 1) and followed-up the most promising variants in 4,035 asthmatics and 11,251 healthy controls (Stage 2). Finally, we conducted the first genome-wide screen for interactions with smoking or hay fever. Main Results: We observed association in the same direction for all thirteen previously reported variants and nominally replicated ten of them. One variant that was previously suggestive, rs11071559 in RORA, now reaches genome-wide significance when combined with our data (P = 2.4x10(-9)). We also identified two genome-wide significant associations: rs13408661 near IL1RL1/IL18R1 (PStage1+Stage2 = 1.1x10(-9)), which is correlated with a variant recently shown to be associated with asthma (rs3771180), and rs9268516 in the HLA region (PStage1+Stage2 = 1.1x10(-8)), which appears to be independent of previously reported associations in this locus. Finally, we found no strong evidence for gene-environment interactions with smoking or hay fever status. Conclusions: Population-based cohorts with simple asthma phenotypes represent a valuable and largely untapped resource for genetic studies of asthma.
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| 4. |
- Thun, Gian Andri, et al.
(författare)
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Causal and Synthetic Associations of Variants in the SERPINA Gene Cluster with Alpha1-antitrypsin Serum Levels
- 2013
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Ingår i: PLOS Genetics. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1553-7390 .- 1553-7404. ; 9:8, s. e1003585-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Several infrequent genetic polymorphisms in the SERPINA1 gene are known to substantially reduce concentration of alpha1-antitrypsin (AAT) in the blood. Since low AAT serum levels fail to protect pulmonary tissue from enzymatic degradation these polymorphisms also increase the risk for early onset chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The role of more common SERPINA1 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in respiratory health remains poorly understood. We present here an agnostic investigation of genetic determinants of circulating AAT levels in a general population sample by performing a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 1392 individuals of the SAPALDIA cohort. Five common SNPs defined by showing minor allele frequencies (MAFs) >5% reached genome-wide significance all located in the SERPINA gene cluster at 14q32.13. The top-ranking genotyped SNP rs4905179 was associated with an estimated effect of beta = 20.068 g/L per minor allele (P = 1.20*10(-12)). But denser SERPINA1 locus genotyping in 5569 participants with subsequent stepwise conditional analysis as well as exon-sequencing in a subsample (N = 410) suggested that AAT serum level is causally determined at this locus by rare (MAF<1%) and low-frequent (MAF 1-5%) variants only in particular by the well-documented protein inhibitor S and Z (PI S PI Z) variants. Replication of the association of rs4905179 with AAT serum levels in the Copenhagen City Heart Study (N = 8273) was successful (P<0.0001) as was the replication of its synthetic nature (the effect disappeared after adjusting for PI S and Z P = 0.57). Extending the analysis to lung function revealed a more complex situation. Only in individuals with severely compromised pulmonary health (N = 397) associations of common SNPs at this locus with lung function were driven by rarer PI S or Z variants. Overall our meta-analysis of lung function in ever-smokers does not support a functional role of common SNPs in the SERPINA gene cluster in the general population.
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| 5. |
- Vimaleswaran, Karani S, et al.
(författare)
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Association of vitamin D status with arterial blood pressure and hypertension risk: a mendelian randomisation study.
- 2014
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Ingår i: The lancet. Diabetes & endocrinology. - 2213-8595 .- 2213-8587. ; 2:9, s. 719-29
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background Low plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) concentration is associated with high arterial blood pressure and hypertension risk, but whether this association is causal is unknown. We used a mendelian randomisation approach to test whether 25(OH)D concentration is causally associated with blood pressure and hypertension risk. Methods In this mendelian randomisation study, we generated an allele score (25[OH]D synthesis score) based on variants of genes that affect 25(OH)D synthesis or substrate availability (CYP2R1 and DHCR7), which we used as a proxy for 25(OH)D concentration. We meta-analysed data for up to 108 173 individuals from 35 studies in the D-CarDia collaboration to investigate associations between the allele score and blood pressure measurements. We complemented these analyses with previously published summary statistics from the International Consortium on Blood Pressure (ICBP), the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) consortium, and the Global Blood Pressure Genetics (Global BPGen) consortium. Findings In phenotypic analyses (up to n=49 363), increased 25(OH)D concentration was associated with decreased systolic blood pressure (β per 10% increase, −0·12 mm Hg, 95% CI −0·20 to −0·04; p=0·003) and reduced odds of hypertension (odds ratio [OR] 0·98, 95% CI 0·97–0·99; p=0·0003), but not with decreased diastolic blood pressure (β per 10% increase, −0·02 mm Hg, −0·08 to 0·03; p=0·37). In meta-analyses in which we combined data from D-CarDia and the ICBP (n=146 581, after exclusion of overlapping studies), each 25(OH)D-increasing allele of the synthesis score was associated with a change of −0·10 mm Hg in systolic blood pressure (−0·21 to −0·0001; p=0·0498) and a change of −0·08 mm Hg in diastolic blood pressure (−0·15 to −0·02; p=0·01). When D-CarDia and consortia data for hypertension were meta-analysed together (n=142 255), the synthesis score was associated with a reduced odds of hypertension (OR per allele, 0·98, 0·96–0·99; p=0·001). In instrumental variable analysis, each 10% increase in genetically instrumented 25(OH)D concentration was associated with a change of −0·29 mm Hg in diastolic blood pressure (−0·52 to −0·07; p=0·01), a change of −0·37 mm Hg in systolic blood pressure (−0·73 to 0·003; p=0·052), and an 8·1% decreased odds of hypertension (OR 0·92, 0·87–0·97; p=0·002). Interpretation Increased plasma concentrations of 25(OH)D might reduce the risk of hypertension. This finding warrants further investigation in an independent, similarly powered study.
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