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- Acosta-Herrera, M, et al.
(författare)
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Genome-wide meta-analysis reveals shared new loci in systemic seropositive rheumatic diseases
- 2019
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Ingår i: Annals of the rheumatic diseases. - : BMJ. - 1468-2060 .- 0003-4967. ; 78:3, s. 311-319
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) are heterogeneous and complex conditions with overlapping clinical symptoms and elevated familial aggregation, which suggests the existence of a shared genetic component. In order to identify this genetic background in a systematic fashion, we performed the first cross-disease genome-wide meta-analysis in systemic seropositive rheumatic diseases, namely, systemic sclerosis, systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis and idiopathic inflammatory myopathies.MethodsWe meta-analysed ~6.5 million single nucleotide polymorphisms in 11 678 cases and 19 704 non-affected controls of European descent populations. The functional roles of the associated variants were interrogated using publicly available databases.ResultsOur analysis revealed five shared genome-wide significant independent loci that had not been previously associated with these diseases: NAB1, KPNA4-ARL14, DGQK, LIMK1 and PRR12. All of these loci are related with immune processes such as interferon and epidermal growth factor signalling, response to methotrexate, cytoskeleton dynamics and coagulation cascade. Remarkably, several of the associated loci are known key players in autoimmunity, which supports the validity of our results. All the associated variants showed significant functional enrichment in DNase hypersensitivity sites, chromatin states and histone marks in relevant immune cells, including shared expression quantitative trait loci. Additionally, our results were significantly enriched in drugs that are being tested for the treatment of the diseases under study.ConclusionsWe have identified shared new risk loci with functional value across diseases and pinpoint new potential candidate loci that could be further investigated. Our results highlight the potential of drug repositioning among related systemic seropositive rheumatic IMIDs.
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| 2. |
- Ishigaki, Kazuyoshi, et al.
(författare)
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Multi-ancestry genome-wide association analyses identify novel genetic mechanisms in rheumatoid arthritis
- 2022
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Ingår i: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Nature. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 54:11, s. 1640-1651
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a highly heritable complex disease with unknown etiology. Multi-ancestry genetic research of RA promises to improve power to detect genetic signals, fine-mapping resolution and performances of polygenic risk scores (PRS). Here, we present a large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) of RA, which includes 276,020 samples from five ancestral groups. We conducted a multi-ancestry meta-analysis and identified 124 loci (P < 5 × 10−8), of which 34 are novel. Candidate genes at the novel loci suggest essential roles of the immune system (for example, TNIP2 and TNFRSF11A) and joint tissues (for example, WISP1) in RA etiology. Multi-ancestry fine-mapping identified putatively causal variants with biological insights (for example, LEF1). Moreover, PRS based on multi-ancestry GWAS outperformed PRS based on single-ancestry GWAS and had comparable performance between populations of European and East Asian ancestries. Our study provides several insights into the etiology of RA and improves the genetic predictability of RA.
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| 3. |
- Villanueva-Martin, G, et al.
(författare)
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The Effect of Body Fat Distribution on Systemic Sclerosis
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of clinical medicine. - : MDPI AG. - 2077-0383. ; 11:20
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Obesity contributes to a chronic proinflammatory state, which is a known risk factor to develop immune-mediated diseases. However, its role in systemic sclerosis (SSc) remains to be elucidated. Therefore, we conducted a two-sample mendelian randomization (2SMR) study to analyze the effect of three body fat distribution parameters in SSc. As instrumental variables, we used the allele effects described for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in different genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for SSc, body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and WHR adjusted for BMI (WHRadjBMI). We performed local (pHESS) and genome-wide (LDSC) genetic correlation analyses between each of the traits and SSc and we applied several Mendelian randomization (MR) methods (i.e., random effects inverse-variance weight, MR-Egger regression, MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier method and a multivariable model). Our results show no genetic correlation or causal relationship between any of these traits and SSc. Nevertheless, we observed a negative causal association between WHRadjBMI and SSc, which might be due to the effect of gastrointestinal complications suffered by the majority of SSc patients. In conclusion, reverse causality might be an especially difficult confounding factor to define the effect of obesity in the onset of SSc.
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| 8. |
- Draaken, Markus, et al.
(författare)
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Classic Bladder Exstrophy: Frequent 22q11.21 Duplications and Definition of a 414 kb Phenocritical Region
- 2014
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Ingår i: Birth Defects Research. Part A: Clinical and Molecular Teratology. - : Wiley. - 1542-0760 .- 1542-0752. ; 100:6, s. 512-517
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Classic bladder exstrophy (CBE) is the most common form of the bladder exstrophy and epispadias complex. Previously, we and others have identified four patients with a duplication of 22q11.21 among a total of 96 unrelated CBE patients. Methods: Here, we investigated whether this chromosomal aberration was commonly associated with CBE/bladder exstrophy and epispadias complex in an extended case-control sample. Multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification and microarray-based analysis were used to identify 22q11.21 duplications in 244 unrelated bladder exstrophy and epispadias complex patients (including 217 CBE patients) and 665 healthy controls. Results: New duplications of variable size were identified in four CBE patients and one control. Pooling of our previous and present data (eight duplications in 313 CBE patients) yielded a combined odds ratio of 31.86 (95% confidence interval, 4.24-1407.97). Array-based sequence capture and high-throughput targeted re-sequencing established that all breakpoints resided within the low-copy repeats 22A to 22D. Comparison of the eight duplications revealed a 414 kb phenocritical region harboring 12 validated RefSeq genes. Characterization of these 12 candidate genes through whole-mount in situ hybridization of mouse embryos at embryonic day 9.5 suggested that CRKL, THAP7, and LZTR1 are CBE candidate genes. Conclusion: Our data suggest that duplication of 22q11.21 increases CBE risk and implicate a phenocritical region in disease formation. (C) 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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| 9. |
- Kerick, M., et al.
(författare)
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Complement component C4 structural variation and quantitative traits contribute to sex-biased vulnerability in systemic sclerosis
- 2022
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Ingår i: npj Genomic Medicine. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2056-7944. ; 7:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Copy number (CN) polymorphisms of complement C4 play distinct roles in many conditions, including immune-mediated diseases. We investigated the association of C4 CN with systemic sclerosis (SSc) risk. Imputed total C4, C4A, C4B, and HERV-K CN were analyzed in 26,633 individuals and validated in an independent cohort. Our results showed that higher C4 CN confers protection to SSc, and deviations from CN parity of C4A and C4B augmented risk. The protection contributed per copy of C4A and C4B differed by sex. Stronger protection was afforded by C4A in men and by C4B in women. C4 CN correlated well with its gene expression and serum protein levels, and less C4 was detected for both in SSc patients. Conditioned analysis suggests that C4 genetics strongly contributes to the SSc association within the major histocompatibility complex locus and highlights classical alleles and amino acid variants of HLA-DRB1 and HLA-DPB1 as C4-independent signals. © 2022, The Author(s).
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| 10. |
- Lopez-Isac, E, et al.
(författare)
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GWAS for systemic sclerosis identifies multiple risk loci and highlights fibrotic and vasculopathy pathways
- 2019
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Ingår i: Nature communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 10:1, s. 4955-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease that shows one of the highest mortality rates among rheumatic diseases. We perform a large genome-wide association study (GWAS), and meta-analysis with previous GWASs, in 26,679 individuals and identify 27 independent genome-wide associated signals, including 13 new risk loci. The novel associations nearly double the number of genome-wide hits reported for SSc thus far. We define 95% credible sets of less than 5 likely causal variants in 12 loci. Additionally, we identify specific SSc subtype-associated signals. Functional analysis of high-priority variants shows the potential function of SSc signals, with the identification of 43 robust target genes through HiChIP. Our results point towards molecular pathways potentially involved in vasculopathy and fibrosis, two main hallmarks in SSc, and highlight the spectrum of critical cell types for the disease. This work supports a better understanding of the genetic basis of SSc and provides directions for future functional experiments.
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