Article

A genome-wide association study on African-ancestry populations for asthma.

Inherited Disease Research Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology (impact factor: 9.17). 11/2009; 125(2):336-346.e4. DOI:10.1016/j.jaci.2009.08.031 pp.336-346.e4
Source: PubMed

ABSTRACT Asthma is a complex disease characterized by striking ethnic disparities not explained entirely by environmental, social, cultural, or economic factors. Of the limited genetic studies performed on populations of African descent, notable differences in susceptibility allele frequencies have been observed.
We sought to test the hypothesis that some genes might contribute to the profound disparities in asthma.
We performed a genome-wide association study in 2 independent populations of African ancestry (935 African American asthmatic cases and control subjects from the Baltimore-Washington, DC, area and 929 African Caribbean asthmatic subjects and their family members from Barbados) to identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with asthma.
A meta-analysis combining these 2 African-ancestry populations yielded 3 SNPs with a combined P value of less than 10(-5) in genes of potential biologic relevance to asthma and allergic disease: rs10515807, mapping to the alpha-1B-adrenergic receptor (ADRA1B) gene on chromosome 5q33 (3.57 x 10(-6)); rs6052761, mapping to the prion-related protein (PRNP) gene on chromosome 20pter-p12 (2.27 x 10(-6)); and rs1435879, mapping to the dipeptidyl peptidase 10 (DPP10) gene on chromosome 2q12.3-q14.2. The generalizability of these findings was tested in family and case-control panels of United Kingdom and German origin, respectively, but none of the associations observed in the African groups were replicated in these European studies. Evidence for association was also examined in 4 additional case-control studies of African Americans; however, none of the SNPs implicated in the discovery population were replicated.
This study illustrates the complexity of identifying true associations for a complex and heterogeneous disease, such as asthma, in admixed populations, especially populations of African descent.

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    Article: Shifting paradigm of association studies: value of rare single-nucleotide polymorphisms.
    Ivan P Gorlov, Olga Y Gorlova, Shamil R Sunyaev, Margaret R Spitz, Christopher I Amos
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    ABSTRACT: Currently, single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with minor allele frequency (MAF) of >5% are preferentially used in case-control association studies of common human diseases. Recent technological developments enable inexpensive and accurate genotyping of a large number of SNPs in thousands of cases and controls, which can provide adequate statistical power to analyze SNPs with MAF <5%. Our purpose was to determine whether evaluating rare SNPs in case-control association studies could help identify causal SNPs for common diseases. We suggest that slightly deleterious SNPs (sdSNPs) subjected to weak purifying selection are major players in genetic control of susceptibility to common diseases. We compared the distribution of MAFs of synonymous SNPs with that of nonsynonymous SNPs (1) predicted to be benign, (2) predicted to be possibly damaging, and (3) predicted to be probably damaging by PolyPhen. Our sources of data were the International HapMap Project, ENCODE, and the SeattleSNPs project. We found that the MAF distribution of possibly and probably damaging SNPs was shifted toward rare SNPs compared with the MAF distribution of benign and synonymous SNPs that are not likely to be functional. We also found an inverse relationship between MAF and the proportion of nsSNPs predicted to be protein disturbing. On the basis of this relationship, we estimated the joint probability that a SNP is functional and would be detected as significant in a case-control study. Our analysis suggests that including rare SNPs in genotyping platforms will advance identification of causal SNPs in case-control association studies, particularly as sample sizes increase.
    The American Journal of Human Genetics 01/2008; 82(1):100-12. · 10.60 Impact Factor
Data provided are for informational purposes only. Although carefully collected, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. The impact factor represents a rough estimation of the journal's impact factor and does not reflect the actual current impact factor. Publisher conditions are provided by RoMEO. Differing provisions from the publisher's actual policy or licence agreement may be applicable.

Keywords

2 African-ancestry populations
 
2 independent populations
 
4 additional case-control studies
 
935 African American asthmatic cases
 
admixed populations
 
allergic disease
 
alpha-1B-adrenergic receptor
 
chromosome 20pter-p12
 
complex disease
 
dipeptidyl peptidase 10
 
economic factors
 
European studies
 
genome-wide association study
 
German origin
 
heterogeneous disease
 
limited genetic studies
 
prion-related protein
 
profound disparities
 
striking ethnic disparities
 
susceptibility allele frequencies