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- Martinelli-Boneschi, F, et al.
(author)
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A genome-wide association study in progressive multiple sclerosis
- 2012
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In: Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England). - : SAGE Publications. - 1477-0970 .- 1352-4585. ; 18:10, s. 1384-1394
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: The role played by genetic factors in influencing the clinical course of multiple sclerosis (MS) is not yet well established. Objective: We aimed to identify genetic variants associated with progressive MS (PrMS). Methods: We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 197 patients with PrMS and 234 controls of Italian origin. We tested the top 20 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with suggestive evidence of association ( p-value<10−4) in two independent sets of primary progressive MS cases and controls. Results: We identified a risk-associated SNP in the HLA region in linkage disequilibrium (LD) with DRB1*1501 and DQB*0602 loci, with genome-wide significance (rs3129934T, pcombined=6.7×10-16, OR=2.34, 95% CI=1.90–2.87), and a novel locus on chromosome 7q35 with suggestive evidence of association (rs996343G, pcombined=2.4×10-5, OR=0.70, 95% CI=0.59–0.83) which maps within a human endogenous retroviral (HERV) element. The new locus did not have a ‘ cis’ effect on RNA expression in lymphoblastic cell lines, but pathway analyses of ‘ trans’ effects point to an expression regulation of genes involved in neurodegeneration, including glutamate metabolism ( p<0.01) and axonal guidance signalling ( p<0.02). Conclusions: We have confirmed the established association with the HLA region and, despite the low statistical power of the study, we found suggestive evidence for association with a novel locus on chromosome 7, with a putative regulatory role.
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- Sawcer, Stephen, et al.
(author)
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Genetic risk and a primary role for cell-mediated immune mechanisms in multiple sclerosis
- 2011
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In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 476:7359, s. 214-219
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Multiple sclerosis is a common disease of the central nervous system in which the interplay between inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes typically results in intermittent neurological disturbance followed by progressive accumulation of disability. Epidemiological studies have shown that genetic factors are primarily responsible for the substantially increased frequency of the disease seen in the relatives of affected individuals, and systematic attempts to identify linkage in multiplex families have confirmed that variation within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) exerts the greatest individual effect on risk. Modestly powered genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have enabled more than 20 additional risk loci to be identified and have shown that multiple variants exerting modest individual effects have a key role in disease susceptibility. Most of the genetic architecture underlying susceptibility to the disease remains to be defined and is anticipated to require the analysis of sample sizes that are beyond the numbers currently available to individual research groups. In a collaborative GWAS involving 9,772 cases of European descent collected by 23 research groups working in 15 different countries, we have replicated almost all of the previously suggested associations and identified at least a further 29 novel susceptibility loci. Within the MHC we have refined the identity of the HLA-DRB1 risk alleles and confirmed that variation in the HLA-A gene underlies the independent protective effect attributable to the class I region. Immunologically relevant genes are significantly overrepresented among those mapping close to the identified loci and particularly implicate T-helper-cell differentiation in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis.
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- Peloso, Gina M, et al.
(author)
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Association of low-frequency and rare coding-sequence variants with blood lipids and coronary heart disease in 56,000 whites and blacks.
- 2014
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In: American Journal of Human Genetics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0002-9297. ; 94:2, s. 223-232
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Low-frequency coding DNA sequence variants in the proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 gene (PCSK9) lower plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), protect against risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), and have prompted the development of a new class of therapeutics. It is uncertain whether the PCSK9 example represents a paradigm or an isolated exception. We used the "Exome Array" to genotype >200,000 low-frequency and rare coding sequence variants across the genome in 56,538 individuals (42,208 European ancestry [EA] and 14,330 African ancestry [AA]) and tested these variants for association with LDL-C, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and triglycerides. Although we did not identify new genes associated with LDL-C, we did identify four low-frequency (frequencies between 0.1% and 2%) variants (ANGPTL8 rs145464906 [c.361C>T; p.Gln121(∗)], PAFAH1B2 rs186808413 [c.482C>T; p.Ser161Leu], COL18A1 rs114139997 [c.331G>A; p.Gly111Arg], and PCSK7 rs142953140 [c.1511G>A; p.Arg504His]) with large effects on HDL-C and/or triglycerides. None of these four variants was associated with risk for CHD, suggesting that examples of low-frequency coding variants with robust effects on both lipids and CHD will be limited.
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