A multi-layer functional genomic analysis to understand noncoding genetic variation in lipids

Shweta Ramdas 1, Jonathan Judd 2, Sarah E Graham 3, Stavroula Kanoni 4, Yuxuan Wang 5, Ida Surakka 3, Brandon Wenz 1, Shoa L Clarke 6, Alessandra Chesi 7, Andrew Wells 1, Konain Fatima Bhatti 4, Sailaja Vedantam 8, Thomas W Winkler 9, Adam E Locke 10, Eirini Marouli 4, Greg J M Zajac 11, Kuan-Han H Wu 12, Ioanna Ntalla 13, Qin Hui 14, Derek Klarin 15, Austin T Hilliard 16, Zeyuan Wang 14, Chao Xue 3, Gudmar Thorleifsson 17, Anna Helgadottir 17, Daniel F Gudbjartsson 18, Hilma Holm 17, Isleifur Olafsson 19, Mi Yeong Hwang 20, Sohee Han 20, Masato Akiyama 21, Saori Sakaue 22, Chikashi Terao 23, Masahiro Kanai 24, Wei Zhou 25, Ben M Brumpton 26, Humaira Rasheed 27, Aki S Havulinna 28, Yogasudha Veturi 29, Jennifer Allen Pacheco 30, Elisabeth A Rosenthal 31, Todd Lingren 32, QiPing Feng 33, Iftikhar J Kullo 34, Akira Narita 35, Jun Takayama 35, Hilary C Martin 36, Karen A Hunt 37, Bhavi Trivedi 37, Jeffrey Haessler 38, Franco Giulianini 39, Yuki Bradford 29, Jason E Miller 29, Archie Campbell 40, Kuang Lin 41, Iona Y Millwood 42, Asif Rasheed 43, George Hindy 44, Jessica D Faul 45, Wei Zhao 46, David R Weir 45, Constance Turman 47, Hongyan Huang 47, Mariaelisa Graff 48, Ananyo Choudhury 49, Dhriti Sengupta 49, Anubha Mahajan 50, Michael R Brown 51, Weihua Zhang 52, Ketian Yu 11, Ellen M Schmidt 11, Anita Pandit 11, Stefan Gustafsson 53, Xianyong Yin 11, Jian'an Luan 54, Jing-Hua Zhao 55, Fumihiko Matsuda 56, Hye-Mi Jang 20, Kyungheon Yoon 20, Carolina Medina-Gomez 57, Achilleas Pitsillides 5, Jouke Jan Hottenga 58, Andrew R Wood 59, Yingji Ji 59, Zishan Gao 60, Simon Haworth 61, Ruth E Mitchell 62, Jin Fang Chai 63, Mette Aadahl 64, Anne A Bjerregaard 65, Jie Yao 66, Ani Manichaikul 67, Wen-Jane Lee 68, Chao Agnes Hsiung 69, Helen R Warren 70, Julia Ramirez 4, Jette Bork-Jensen 71, Line L Kårhus 65, Anuj Goel 72, Maria Sabater-Lleal 73, Raymond Noordam 74, Pala Mauro 75, Floris Matteo 76, Aaron F McDaid 77, Pedro Marques-Vidal 78, Matthias Wielscher 79, Stella Trompet 80, Naveed Sattar 81, Line T Møllehave 65, Matthias Munz 82, Lingyao Zeng 83, Jianfeng Huang 84, Bin Yang 84, Alaitz Poveda 85, Azra Kurbasic 85, Sebastian Schönherr 86, Lukas Forer 86, Markus Scholz 87, Tessel E Galesloot 88, Jonathan P Bradfield 89, Sanni E Ruotsalainen 90, E Warwick Daw 91, Joseph M Zmuda 92, Jonathan S Mitchell 93, Christian Fuchsberger 93, Henry Christensen 94, Jennifer A Brody 95, Phuong Le 96, Mary F Feitosa 91, Mary K Wojczynski 91, Daiane Hemerich 97, Michael Preuss 97, Massimo Mangino 98, Paraskevi Christofidou 99, Niek Verweij 100, Jan W Benjamins 100, Jorgen Engmann 101, Tsao L Noah 102, Anurag Verma 1, Roderick C Slieker 103, Ken Sin Lo 104, Nuno R Zilhao 105, Marcus E Kleber 106, Graciela E Delgado 107, Shaofeng Huo 108, Daisuke D Ikeda 109, Hiroyuki Iha 109, Jian Yang 110, Jun Liu 111, Ayşe Demirkan 112, Hampton L Leonard 113, Jonathan Marten 114, Carina Emmel 115, Börge Schmidt 115, Laura J Smyth 116, Marisa Cañadas-Garre 117, Chaolong Wang 118, Masahiro Nakatochi 119, Andrew Wong 120, Nina Hutri-Kähönen 121, Xueling Sim 63, Rui Xia 122, Alicia Huerta-Chagoya 123, Juan Carlos Fernandez-Lopez 124, Valeriya Lyssenko 125, Suraj S Nongmaithem 126, Alagu Sankareswaran 127, Marguerite R Irvin 120, Christopher Oldmeadow 128, Han-Na Kim 129, Seungho Ryu 130, Paul R H J Timmers 131, Liubov Arbeeva 132, Rajkumar Dorajoo 133, Leslie A Lange 134, Gauri Prasad 135, Laura Lorés-Motta 136, Marc Pauper 136, Jirong Long 137, Xiaohui Li 66, Elizabeth Theusch 138, Fumihiko Takeuchi 139, Cassandra N Spracklen 140, Anu Loukola 90, Sailalitha Bollepalli 90, Sophie C Warner 141, Ya Xing Wang 142, Wen B Wei 143, Teresa Nutile 144, Daniela Ruggiero 145, Yun Ju Sung 146, Shufeng Chen 84, Fangchao Liu 84, Jingyun Yang 147, Katherine A Kentistou 148, Bernhard Banas 149, Anna Morgan 150, Karina Meidtner 151, Lawrence F Bielak 46, Jennifer A Smith 152, Prashantha Hebbar 153, Aliki-Eleni Farmaki 154, Edith Hofer 155, Maoxuan Lin 156, Maria Pina 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Brown 362

Affiliations


Abstract

A major challenge of genome-wide association studies (GWASs) is to translate phenotypic associations into biological insights. Here, we integrate a large GWAS on blood lipids involving 1.6 million individuals from five ancestries with a wide array of functional genomic datasets to discover regulatory mechanisms underlying lipid associations. We first prioritize lipid-associated genes with expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) colocalizations and then add chromatin interaction data to narrow the search for functional genes. Polygenic enrichment analysis across 697 annotations from a host of tissues and cell types confirms the central role of the liver in lipid levels and highlights the selective enrichment of adipose-specific chromatin marks in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides. Overlapping transcription factor (TF) binding sites with lipid-associated loci identifies TFs relevant in lipid biology. In addition, we present an integrative framework to prioritize causal variants at GWAS loci, producing a comprehensive list of candidate causal genes and variants with multiple layers of functional evidence. We highlight two of the prioritized genes, CREBRF and RRBP1, which show convergent evidence across functional datasets supporting their roles in lipid biology.

Keywords: complex traits; fine-mapping; functional genomics; lipid biology; post-GWAS; regulatory mechanism; variant prioritization.

Copyright © 2022 American Society of Human Genetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests G.C.-P. is currently an employee of 23andMe Inc. M.J.C. is the Chief Scientist for Genomics England, a UK Government company. B.M. Psaty serves on the steering committee of the Yale Open Data Access Project funded by Johnson & Johnson. G. Thorleifsson, A.H., D.F.G., H. Holm, U.T., and K.S. are employees of deCODE/Amgen Inc. V.S. has received honoraria for consultations from Novo Nordisk and Sanofi and has an ongoing research collaboration with Bayer Ltd. M. McCarthy has served on advisory panels for Pfizer, NovoNordisk, and Zoe Global and has received honoraria from Merck, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, and Eli Lilly and research funding from Abbvie, Astra Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Merck, NovoNordisk, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi Aventis, Servier, and Takeda. M. McCarthy and A. Mahajan are employees of Genentech and holders of Roche stock. M.S. receives funding from Pfizer Inc. for a project unrelated to this work. M.E.K. is employed by SYNLAB MVZ Mannheim GmbH. W.M. has received grants from Siemens Healthineers, grants and personal fees from Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, grants and personal fees from AMGEN, grants from Astrazeneca, grants and personal fees from Sanofi, grants and personal fees from Alexion Pharmaceuticals, grants and personal fees from BASF, grants and personal fees from Abbott Diagnostics, grants and personal fees from Numares AG, grants and personal fees from Berlin-Chemie, grants and personal fees from Akzea Therapeutics, grants from Bayer Vital GmbH , grants from bestbion dx GmbH, grants from Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH Co KG, grants from Immundiagnostik GmbH, grants from Merck Chemicals GmbH, grants from MSD Sharp and Dohme GmbH, grants from Novartis Pharma GmbH, grants from Olink Proteomics, and other from Synlab Holding Deutschland GmbH, all outside the submitted work. A.V.K. has served as a consultant to Sanofi, Medicines Company, Maze Pharmaceuticals, Navitor Pharmaceuticals, Verve Therapeutics, Amgen, and Color Genomics; received speaking fees from Illumina and the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research; received sponsored research agreements from the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research and IBM Research, and reports a patent related to a genetic risk predictor (20190017119). S. Kathiresan is an employee of Verve Therapeutics and holds equity in Verve Therapeutics, Maze Therapeutics, Catabasis, and San Therapeutics. He is a member of the scientific advisory boards for Regeneron Genetics Center and Corvidia Therapeutics; he has served as a consultant for Acceleron, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Novo Ventures, Ionis, Alnylam, Aegerion, Haug Partners, Noble Insights, Leerink Partners, Bayer Healthcare, Illumina, Color Genomics, MedGenome, Quest, and Medscape; and he reports patents related to a method of identifying and treating a person having a predisposition to or afflicted with cardiometabolic disease (20180010185) and a genetics risk predictor (20190017119). D.K. accepts consulting fees from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. D.O.M.-K. is a part-time clinical research consultant for Metabolon, Inc. D. Saleheen has received support from the British Heart Foundation, Pfizer, Regeneron, Genentech, and Eli Lilly pharmaceuticals. P.N. reports investigator-initated grants from Amgen, Apple, AstraZeneca, Boston Scientific, and Novartis, personal fees from Apple, AstraZeneca, Blackstone Life Sciences, Foresite Labs, Novartis, Roche / Genentech, is a co-founder of TenSixteen Bio, is a scientific advisory board member of Esperion Therapeutics, geneXwell, and TenSixteen Bio, and spousal employment at Vertex, all unrelated to the present work. The spouse of C.J.W. is employed by Regeneron.


References

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/