1. |
- Bruzelius, Maria, et al.
(author)
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PDGFB, a new candidate plasma biomarker for venous thromboembolism : results from the VEREMA affinity proteomics study
- 2016
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In: Blood. - : American Society of Hematology. - 0006-4971 .- 1528-0020. ; 128:23, s. E59-E66
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- There is a clear clinical need for high-specificity plasma biomarkers for predicting risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE), but thus far, such markers have remained elusive. Utilizing affinity reagents from the Human Protein Atlas project and multiplexed immuoassays, we extensively analyzed plasma samples from 2 individual studies to identify candidate protein markers associated with VTE risk. We screened plasma samples from 88 VTE cases and 85 matched controls, collected as part of the Swedish Venous Thromboembolism Biomarker Study, using suspension bead arrays composed of 755 antibodies targeting 408 candidate proteins. We identified significant associations between VTE occurrence and plasma levels of human immunodeficiency virus type I enhancer binding protein 1 (HIVEP1), von Willebrand factor (VWF), glutathione peroxidase 3 (GPX3), and platelet-derived growth factor beta (PDGFB). For replication, we profiled plasma samples of 580 cases and 589 controls from the French FARIVE study. These results confirmed the association of VWF and PDGFB with VTE after correction for multiple testing, whereas only weak trends were observed for HIVEP1 and GPX3. Although plasma levels of VWF and PDGFB correlated modestly (rho similar to 0.30) with each other, they were independently associated with VTE risk in a joint model in FARIVE (VWF P < .001; PDGFB P = .002). PDGF. was verified as the target of the capture antibody by immunocapture mass spectrometry and sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. In conclusion, we demonstrate that high-throughput affinity plasma proteomic profiling is a valuable research strategy to identify potential candidate biomarkers for thrombosis-related disorders, and our study suggests a novel association of PDGFB plasma levels with VTE.
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2. |
- de Vries, Paul S., et al.
(author)
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Comparison of HapMap and 1000 Genomes Reference Panels in a Large-Scale Genome-Wide Association Study
- 2017
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In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 12:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- An increasing number of genome-wide association (GWA) studies are now using the higher resolution 1000 Genomes Project reference panel (1000G) for imputation, with the expectation that 1000G imputation will lead to the discovery of additional associated loci when compared to HapMap imputation. In order to assess the improvement of 1000G over HapMap imputation in identifying associated loci, we compared the results of GWA studies of circulating fibrinogen based on the two reference panels. Using both HapMap and 1000G imputation we performed a meta-analysis of 22 studies comprising the same 91,953 individuals. We identified six additional signals using 1000G imputation, while 29 loci were associated using both HapMap and 1000G imputation. One locus identified using HapMap imputation was not significant using 1000G imputation. The genome-wide significance threshold of 5x10(-8) is based on the number of independent statistical tests using HapMap imputation, and 1000G imputation may lead to further independent tests that should be corrected for. When using a stricter Bonferroni correction for the 1000G GWA study (P-value < 2.5x10(-8)), the number of loci significant only using HapMap imputation increased to 4 while the number of loci significant only using 1000G decreased to 5. In conclusion, 1000G imputation enabled the identification of 20% more loci than HapMap imputation, although the advantage of 1000G imputation became less clear when a stricter Bonferroni correction was used. More generally, our results provide insights that are applicable to the implementation of other dense reference panels that are under development.
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3. |
- Evangelou, Evangelos, et al.
(author)
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Genetic analysis of over 1 million people identifies 535 new loci associated with blood pressure traits.
- 2018
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In: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 50:10, s. 1412-1425
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- High blood pressure is a highly heritable and modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We report the largest genetic association study of blood pressure traits (systolic, diastolic and pulse pressure) to date in over 1 million people of European ancestry. We identify 535 novel blood pressure loci that not only offer new biological insights into blood pressure regulation but also highlight shared genetic architecture between blood pressure and lifestyle exposures. Our findings identify new biological pathways for blood pressure regulation with potential for improved cardiovascular disease prevention in the future.
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4. |
- Folkersen, Lasse, et al.
(author)
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Mapping of 79 loci for 83 plasma protein biomarkers in cardiovascular disease
- 2017
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In: PLOS Genetics. - : PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE. - 1553-7390 .- 1553-7404. ; 13:4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Recent advances in highly multiplexed immunoassays have allowed systematic large-scale measurement of hundreds of plasma proteins in large cohort studies. In combination with genotyping, such studies offer the prospect to 1) identify mechanisms involved with regulation of protein expression in plasma, and 2) determine whether the plasma proteins are likely to be causally implicated in disease. We report here the results of genome-wide association (GWA) studies of 83 proteins considered relevant to cardiovascular disease (CVD), measured in 3,394 individuals with multiple CVD risk factors. We identified 79 genome-wide significant (p<5e-8) association signals, 55 of which replicated at P<0.0007 in separate validation studies (n = 2,639 individuals). Using automated text mining, manual curation, and network-based methods incorporating information on expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL), we propose plausible causal mechanisms for 25 trans-acting loci, including a potential post-translational regulation of stem cell factor by matrix metalloproteinase 9 and receptor-ligand pairs such as RANK-RANK ligand. Using public GWA study data, we further evaluate all 79 loci for their causal effect on coronary artery disease, and highlight several potentially causal associations. Overall, a majority of the plasma proteins studied showed evidence of regulation at the genetic level. Our results enable future studies of the causal architecture of human disease, which in turn should aid discovery of new drug targets.
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7. |
- Frånberg, Mattias, 1985-, et al.
(author)
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Discovering Genetic Interactions in Large-Scale Association Studies by Stage-wise Likelihood Ratio Tests
- 2015
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In: PLOS Genetics. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1553-7390 .- 1553-7404. ; 11:9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Despite the success of genome-wide association studies in medical genetics, the underlying genetics of many complex diseases remains enigmatic. One plausible reason for this could be the failure to account for the presence of genetic interactions in current analyses. Exhaustive investigations of interactions are typically infeasible because the vast number of possible interactions impose hard statistical and computational challenges. There is, therefore, a need for computationally efficient methods that build on models appropriately capturing interaction. We introduce a new methodology where we augment the interaction hypothesis with a set of simpler hypotheses that are tested, in order of their complexity, against a saturated alternative hypothesis representing interaction. This sequential testing provides an efficient way to reduce the number of non-interacting variant pairs before the final interaction test. We devise two different methods, one that relies on a priori estimated numbers of marginally associated variants to correct for multiple tests, and a second that does this adaptively. We show that our methodology in general has an improved statistical power in comparison to seven other methods, and, using the idea of closed testing, that it controls the family-wise error rate. We apply our methodology to genetic data from the PRO-CARDIS coronary artery disease case/control cohort and discover three distinct interactions. While analyses on simulated data suggest that the statistical power may suffice for an exhaustive search of all variant pairs in ideal cases, we explore strategies for a priori selecting subsets of variant pairs to test. Our new methodology facilitates identification of new disease-relevant interactions from existing and future genome-wide association data, which may involve genes with previously unknown association to the disease. Moreover, it enables construction of interaction networks that provide a systems biology view of complex diseases, serving as a basis for more comprehensive understanding of disease pathophysiology and its clinical consequences.
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8. |
- Frånberg, Mattias, 1985-, et al.
(author)
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Fast and general tests of genetic interaction for genome-wide association studies
- 2017
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In: PloS Computational Biology. - : PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE. - 1553-734X .- 1553-7358. ; 13:6
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A complex disease has, by definition, multiple genetic causes. In theory, these causes could be identified individually, but their identification will likely benefit from informed use of anticipated interactions between causes. In addition, characterizing and understanding interactions must be considered key to revealing the etiology of any complex disease. Large-scale collaborative efforts are now paving the way for comprehensive studies of interaction. As a consequence, there is a need for methods with a computational efficiency sufficient for modern data sets as well as for improvements of statistical accuracy and power. Another issue is that, currently, the relation between different methods for interaction inference is in many cases not transparent, complicating the comparison and interpretation of results between different interaction studies. In this paper we present computationally efficient tests of interaction for the complete family of generalized linear models (GLMs). The tests can be applied for inference of single or multiple interaction parameters, but we show, by simulation, that jointly testing the full set of interaction parameters yields superior power and control of false positive rate. Based on these tests we also describe how to combine results from multiple independent studies of interaction in a meta-analysis. We investigate the impact of several assumptions commonly made when modeling interactions. We also show that, across the important class of models with a full set of interaction parameters, jointly testing the interaction parameters yields identical results. Further, we apply our method to genetic data for cardiovascular disease. This allowed us to identify a putative interaction involved in Lp(a) plasma levels between two 'tag' variants in the LPA locus (p = 2.42 . 10(-09)) as well as replicate the interaction (p = 6.97 . 10(-07)). Finally, our meta-analysis method is used in a small (N = 16,181) study of interactions in myocardial infarction.
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9. |
- Frånberg, Mattias, 1985-
(author)
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Statistical methods for detecting gene-gene and gene-environment interactions in genome-wide association studies
- 2019
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Despite considerable effort to elucidate the genetic architecture of multi-factorial traits and diseases, there remains a gap between the estimated heritability (e.g., from twin studies) and the heritability explained by discovered genetic variants. The existence of interactions between different genes, and between genes and the environment, has frequently been hypothesized as a likely cause of this discrepancy. However, the statistical inference of interactions is plagued by limited sample sizes, high computational requirements, and incomplete knowledge of how the measurement scale and parameterization affect the analysis.This thesis addresses the major statistical, computational, and modeling issues that hamper large-scale interaction studies today. Furthermore, it investigates whether gene-gene and gene-environment interactions are significantly involved in the development of diseases linked to atherosclerosis. Firstly, I develop two statistical methods that can be used to study of gene-gene interactions: the first is tailored for limited sample size situations, and the second enables multiple analyses to be combined into large meta-analyses. I perform comprehensive simulation studies to determine that these methods have higher or equal statistical power than contemporary methods, scale-invariance is required to guard against false positives, and that saturated parameterizations perform well in terms of statistical power. In two studies, I apply the two proposed methods to case/control data from myocardial infarction and associated phenotypes. In both studies, we identify putative interactions for myocardial infarction but are unable to replicate the interactions in a separate cohort. In the second study, however, we identify and replicate a putative interaction involved in Lp(a) plasma levels between two variants rs3103353 and rs9458157. Secondly, I develop a multivariate statistical method that simultaneously estimates the effects of genetic variants, environmental variables, and their interactions. I show by extensive simulations that this method achieves statistical power close to the optimal oracle method. We use this method to study the involvement of gene-environment interactions in intima-media thickness, a phenotype relevant for coronary artery disease. We identify a putative interaction between a genetic variant in the KCTD8 gene and alcohol use, thus suggesting an influence on intima-media thickness. The methods developed to support the analyses in this thesis as well as a selection of other prominent methods in the field is implemented in a software package called besiq.In conclusion, this thesis presents statistical methods, and the associated software, that allows large-scale studies of gene-gene and gene-environment interactions to be effortlessly undertaken.
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10. |
- Gaulton, Kyle J, et al.
(author)
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Genetic fine mapping and genomic annotation defines causal mechanisms at type 2 diabetes susceptibility loci.
- 2015
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In: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1546-1718 .- 1061-4036. ; 47:12, s. 1415-1415
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We performed fine mapping of 39 established type 2 diabetes (T2D) loci in 27,206 cases and 57,574 controls of European ancestry. We identified 49 distinct association signals at these loci, including five mapping in or near KCNQ1. 'Credible sets' of the variants most likely to drive each distinct signal mapped predominantly to noncoding sequence, implying that association with T2D is mediated through gene regulation. Credible set variants were enriched for overlap with FOXA2 chromatin immunoprecipitation binding sites in human islet and liver cells, including at MTNR1B, where fine mapping implicated rs10830963 as driving T2D association. We confirmed that the T2D risk allele for this SNP increases FOXA2-bound enhancer activity in islet- and liver-derived cells. We observed allele-specific differences in NEUROD1 binding in islet-derived cells, consistent with evidence that the T2D risk allele increases islet MTNR1B expression. Our study demonstrates how integration of genetic and genomic information can define molecular mechanisms through which variants underlying association signals exert their effects on disease.
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12. |
- Sahlin, Kristoffer, et al.
(author)
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Correcting bias from stochastic insert size in read pair data—applications to structural variation detection and genome assembly
- 2015
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Insert size distributions from paired read protocols are used for inference in bioinformatic applications such as genome assembly and structural variation detection. However, many of the models that are being used are subject to bias. This bias arises when we assume that all insert sizes within a distribution are equally likely to be observed, when in fact, size matters. These systematic errors exist in popular software even when the assumptions made about data are true. We have previously shown that bias occurs for scaffolders in genome assembly. Here, we generalize the theory and demonstrate that it is applicable in other contexts. We provide examples of bias in state-of the-art software and improve them using our model. One key application of our theory is structural variation detection using read pairs. We show that an incorrect null-hypothesis is commonly used in popular tools and can be corrected using our theory. Furthermore, we approximate the smallest size of indels that are possible to discover given an insert size distribution. Two other applications are inference of insert size distribution on \emph{de novo} genome assemblies and error correction of genome assemblies using mated reads. Our theory is implemented in a tool called GetDistr (\url{https://github.com/ksahlin/GetDistr}).
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13. |
- Scott, Robert A., et al.
(author)
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An Expanded Genome-Wide Association Study of Type 2 Diabetes in Europeans
- 2017
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In: Diabetes. - : American Diabetes Association. - 0012-1797 .- 1939-327X. ; 66:11, s. 2888-2902
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- To characterize type 2 diabetes (T2D)-associated variation across the allele frequency spectrum, we conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association data from 26,676 T2D case and 132,532 control subjects of European ancestry after imputation using the 1000 Genomes multiethnic reference panel. Promising association signals were followed up in additional data sets (of 14,545 or 7,397 T2D case and 38,994 or 71,604 control subjects). We identified 13 novel T2D-associated loci (P < 5 x 10(-8)), including variants near the GLP2R, GIP, and HLA-DQA1 genes. Our analysis brought the total number of independent T2D associations to 128 distinct signals at 113 loci. Despite substantially increased sample size and more complete coverage of low-frequency variation, all novel associations were driven by common single nucleotide variants. Credible sets of potentially causal variants were generally larger than those based on imputation with earlier reference panels, consistent with resolution of causal signals to common risk haplotypes. Stratification of T2D-associated loci based on T2D-related quantitative trait associations revealed tissue-specific enrichment of regulatory annotations in pancreatic islet enhancers for loci influencing insulin secretion and in adipocytes, monocytes, and hepatocytes for insulin action-associated loci. These findings highlight the predominant role played by common variants of modest effect and the diversity of biological mechanisms influencing T2D pathophysiology.
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14. |
- Wain, Louise V., et al.
(author)
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Novel Blood Pressure Locus and Gene Discovery Using Genome-Wide Association Study and Expression Data Sets From Blood and the Kidney
- 2017
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In: Hypertension. - 0194-911X .- 1524-4563. ; 70:3, s. e4-e19
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Elevated blood pressure is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and has a substantial genetic contribution. Genetic variation influencing blood pressure has the potential to identify new pharmacological targets for the treatment of hypertension. To discover additional novel blood pressure loci, we used 1000 Genomes Project-based imputation in 150 134 European ancestry individuals and sought significant evidence for independent replication in a further 228 245 individuals. We report 6 new signals of association in or near HSPB7, TNXB, LRP12, LOC283335, SEPT9, and AKT2, and provide new replication evidence for a further 2 signals in EBF2 and NFKBIA. Combining large whole-blood gene expression resources totaling 12 607 individuals, we investigated all novel and previously reported signals and identified 48 genes with evidence for involvement in blood pressure regulation that are significant in multiple resources. Three novel kidney-specific signals were also detected. These robustly implicated genes may provide new leads for therapeutic innovation.
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16. |
- Wessel, Jennifer, et al.
(author)
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Low-frequency and rare exome chip variants associate with fasting glucose and type 2 diabetes susceptibility
- 2015
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In: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 6
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Fasting glucose and insulin are intermediate traits for type 2 diabetes. Here we explore the role of coding variation on these traits by analysis of variants on the HumanExome BeadChip in 60,564 non-diabetic individuals and in 16,491 T2D cases and 81,877 controls. We identify a novel association of a low-frequency nonsynonymous SNV in GLP1R (A316T; rs10305492; MAF = 1.4%) with lower FG (beta = -0.09 +/- 0.01 mmol l(-1), P = 3.4 x 10(-12)), T2D risk (OR[95% CI] = 0.86[0.76-0.96], P = 0.010), early insulin secretion (beta = -0.07 +/- 0.035 pmol(insulin) mmol(glucose)(-1), P = 0.048), but higher 2-h glucose (beta = 0.16 +/- 0.05 mmol l(-1), P = 4.3 x 10(-4)). We identify a gene-based association with FG at G6PC2 (p(SKAT) = 6.8 x 10(-6)) driven by four rare protein-coding SNVs (H177Y, Y207S, R283X and S324P). We identify rs651007 (MAF = 20%) in the first intron of ABO at the putative promoter of an antisense lncRNA, associating with higher FG (beta = 0.02 +/- 0.004 mmol l(-1), P = 1.3 x 10(-8)). Our approach identifies novel coding variant associations and extends the allelic spectrum of variation underlying diabetes-related quantitative traits and T2D susceptibility.
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