Discovery and refinement of genetic loci associated with cardiometabolic risk using dense imputation maps.

Iotchkova V, Huang J, Morris JA, Jain D, Barbieri C, Walter K, Min JL, Chen L, Astle W, Cocca M, Deelen P, Elding H, Farmaki AE, Franklin CS, Franberg M, Gaunt TR, Hofman A, Jiang T, Kleber ME, Lachance G, Luan J, Malerba G, Matchan A, Mead D, Memari Y, Ntalla I, Panoutsopoulou K, Pazoki R, Perry JR, Rivadeneira F, Sabater-Lleal M, Sennblad B, Shin SY, Southam L, Traglia M, van Dijk F, van Leeuwen EM, Zaza G, Zhang W, UK10K Consortium , Amin N, Butterworth A, Chambers JC, Dedoussis G, Dehghan A, Franco OH, Franke L, Frontini M, Gambaro G, Gasparini P, Hamsten A, Issacs A, Kooner JS, Kooperberg C, Langenberg C, Marz W, Scott RA, Swertz MA, Toniolo D, Uitterlinden AG, van Duijn CM, Watkins H, Zeggini E, Maurano MT, Timpson NJ, Reiner AP, Auer PL, Soranzo N

Nat. Genet. 48 (11) 1303-1312 [2016-11-00; online 2016-10-28]

Large-scale whole-genome sequence data sets offer novel opportunities to identify genetic variation underlying human traits. Here we apply genotype imputation based on whole-genome sequence data from the UK10K and 1000 Genomes Project into 35,981 study participants of European ancestry, followed by association analysis with 20 quantitative cardiometabolic and hematological traits. We describe 17 new associations, including 6 rare (minor allele frequency (MAF) < 1%) or low-frequency (1% < MAF < 5%) variants with platelet count (PLT), red blood cell indices (MCH and MCV) and HDL cholesterol. Applying fine-mapping analysis to 233 known and new loci associated with the 20 traits, we resolve the associations of 59 loci to credible sets of 20 or fewer variants and describe trait enrichments within regions of predicted regulatory function. These findings improve understanding of the allelic architecture of risk factors for cardiometabolic and hematological diseases and provide additional functional insights with the identification of potentially novel biological targets.

Bioinformatics Support for Computational Resources [Service]

NGI Uppsala (SNP&SEQ Technology Platform) [Service]

National Genomics Infrastructure [Service]

PubMed 27668658

DOI 10.1038/ng.3668

Crossref 10.1038/ng.3668

pii: ng.3668
pmc: PMC5279872
mid: EMS71079