| 1. |
- Liang, Liming, et al.
(författare)
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An epigenome-wide association study of total serum immunoglobulin E concentration
- 2015
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 520:7549, s. 670-U188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Immunoglobulin E (IgE) is a central mediator of allergic (atopic) inflammation. Therapies directed against IgE can alleviate hay fever' and allergic asthma'''. Genetic association studies have not yet identified novel therapeutic targets or pathways underlying IgE regulation'. We therefore surveyed epigenetic associations between serum IgE concentrations and methylation at loci concentrated in CpG islands genome wide in 95 nuclear pedigrees, using DNA from peripheral blood leukocytes. We validated positive results in additional families and in subjects from the general population. Here we show replicated associations with a meta-analysis false discovery rate less than 10-4 between IgE and low methylation at 36 loci. Genes annotated to these loci encode known eosinophil products, and also implicate phospholipid inflammatory mediators, specific transcription factors and mitochondrial proteins. We confirmed that methylation at these loci differed significantly in isolated eosinophils from subjects with and without asthma and high IgE levels. The top three loci accounted for 13% of IgE variation in the primary subject panel, explaining the tenfold higher variance found compared with that derived from large single-nucleotide polymorphism genome-wide association studies'''. This study identifies novel therapeutic targets and biomarkers for patient stratification for allergic diseases.
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| 2. |
- Morin, Andreanne, et al.
(författare)
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Exploring rare and low-frequency variants in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean population identified genes associated with asthma and allergy traits
- 2019
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Ingår i: European Journal of Human Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1018-4813 .- 1476-5438. ; 27:1, s. 90-101
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean (SLSJ) region is located in northeastern Quebec and is known for its unique demographic history and founder effect. As founder populations are enriched with population-specific variants, we characterized the variants distribution in SLSJ and compared it with four European populations (Finnish, Sweden, United Kingdom and France), of which the Finnish population is another founder population. Targeted sequencing of the coding and non-coding immune regulatory regions of the SLSJ asthma familial cohort and the four European populations were performed. Rare and low-frequency coding and non-coding regulatory variants identified in the SLSJ population were then investigated for variant-and gene-level associations with asthma and allergy-related traits (eosinophil percentage, immunoglobulin (Ig) E levels and lung function). Our data showed that (1) rare or deleterious variants were not enriched in the two founder populations as compared with the three non-founder European populations; (2) a larger proportion of founder population-specific variants occurred with higher frequencies; and (3) low-frequency variants appeared to be more deleterious. Furthermore, a rare variant, rs1386931, located in the 3'-UTR of CXCR6 and intron of FYCO1 was found to be associated with eosinophil percentage. Gene-based analyses identified NRP2, MRPL44 and SERPINE2 to be associated with various asthma and allergy-related traits. Our study demonstrated the usefulness of using a founder population to identify new genes associated with asthma and allergy-related traits; thus better understand the genes and pathways implicated in pathophysiology.
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| 3. |
- Morin, Andreanne, et al.
(författare)
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Immunoseq : the identification of functionally relevant variants through targeted capture and sequencing of active regulatory regions in human immune cells
- 2016
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Ingår i: BMC Medical Genomics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1755-8794. ; 9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The observation that the genetic variants identified in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) frequently lie in non-coding regions of the genome that contain cis-regulatory elements suggests that altered gene expression underlies the development of many complex traits. In order to efficiently make a comprehensive assessment of the impact of non-coding genetic variation in immune related diseases we emulated the whole-exome sequencing paradigm and developed a custom capture panel for the known DNase I hypersensitive site (DHS) in immune cells - "Immunoseq". Results: We performed Immunoseq in 30 healthy individuals where we had existing transcriptome data from T cells. We identified a large number of novel non-coding variants in these samples. Relying on allele specific expression measurements, we also showed that our selected capture regions are enriched for functional variants that have an impact on differential allelic gene expression. The results from a replication set with 180 samples confirmed our observations. Conclusions: We show that Immunoseq is a powerful approach to detect novel rare variants in regulatory regions. We also demonstrate that these novel variants have a potential functional role in immune cells.
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