@article {91, title = {Assessing Digital Phenotyping to Enhance Genetic Studies of Human Diseases.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {106}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 05 07}, pages = {611-622}, abstract = {

Population-scale biobanks that combine genetic data and high-dimensional phenotyping for a large number of participants provide an exciting opportunity to perform genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to identify genetic variants associated with diverse quantitative traits and diseases. A major challenge for GWAS in population biobanks is ascertaining disease cases from heterogeneous data sources such as hospital records, digital questionnaire responses, or interviews. In this study, we use genetic parameters, including genetic correlation, to evaluate whether GWAS performed using cases in the UK Biobank ascertained from hospital records, questionnaire responses, and family history of disease implicate similar disease genetics across a range of effect sizes. We find that hospital record and questionnaire GWAS largely identify similar genetic effects for many complex phenotypes and that combining together both phenotyping methods improves power to detect genetic associations. We also show that family history GWAS using cases ascertained on family history of disease agrees with combined hospital record and questionnaire GWAS and that family history GWAS has better power to detect genetic associations for some phenotypes. Overall, this work demonstrates that digital phenotyping and unstructured phenotype data can be combined with structured data such as hospital records to identify cases for GWAS in biobanks and improve the ability of such studies to identify genetic associations.

}, keywords = {Asthma, Databases, Factual, Disease, Female, Genetics, Medical, Genome-Wide Association Study, Genotype, Humans, Male, Neoplasms, Phenotype, United Kingdom}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2020.03.007}, author = {DeBoever, Christopher and Tanigawa, Yosuke and Aguirre, Matthew and McInnes, Greg and Lavertu, Adam and Rivas, Manuel A} } @article {128, title = {A phenome-wide association study of 26 mendelian genes reveals phenotypic expressivity of common and rare variants within the general population.}, journal = {PLoS Genet}, volume = {16}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 11}, pages = {e1008802}, abstract = {

The clinical evaluation of a genetic syndrome relies upon recognition of a characteristic pattern of signs or symptoms to guide targeted genetic testing for confirmation of the diagnosis. However, individuals displaying a single phenotype of a complex syndrome may not meet criteria for clinical diagnosis or genetic testing. Here, we present a phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) approach to systematically explore the phenotypic expressivity of common and rare alleles in genes associated with four well-described syndromic diseases (Alagille (AS), Marfan (MS), DiGeorge (DS), and Noonan (NS) syndromes) in the general population. Using human phenotype ontology (HPO) terms, we systematically mapped 60 phenotypes related to AS, MS, DS and NS in 337,198 unrelated white British from the UK Biobank (UKBB) based on their hospital admission records, self-administrated questionnaires, and physiological measurements. We performed logistic regression adjusting for age, sex, and the first 5 genetic principal components, for each phenotype and each variant in the target genes (JAG1, NOTCH2 FBN1, PTPN1 and RAS-opathy genes, and genes in the 22q11.2 locus) and performed a gene burden test. Overall, we observed multiple phenotype-genotype correlations, such as the association between variation in JAG1, FBN1, PTPN11 and SOS2 with diastolic and systolic blood pressure; and pleiotropy among multiple variants in syndromic genes. For example, rs11066309 in PTPN11 was significantly associated with a lower body mass index, an increased risk of hypothyroidism and a smaller size for gestational age, all in concordance with NS-related phenotypes. Similarly, rs589668 in FBN1 was associated with an increase in body height and blood pressure, and a reduced body fat percentage as observed in Marfan syndrome. Our findings suggest that the spectrum of associations of common and rare variants in genes involved in syndromic diseases can be extended to individual phenotypes within the general population.

}, keywords = {Alagille Syndrome, Alleles, Biological Variation, Population, DiGeorge Syndrome, European Continental Ancestry Group, Female, Gene Frequency, Genetic Association Studies, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genetic Testing, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Male, Marfan Syndrome, Noonan Syndrome, Phenotype, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, United Kingdom}, issn = {1553-7404}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pgen.1008802}, author = {Tcheandjieu, Catherine and Aguirre, Matthew and Gustafsson, Stefan and Saha, Priyanka and Potiny, Praneetha and Haendel, Melissa and Ingelsson, Erik and Rivas, Manuel A and Priest, James R} } @article {102, title = {Race, socioeconomic deprivation, and hospitalization for COVID-19 in English participants of a national biobank.}, journal = {Int J Equity Health}, volume = {19}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 07 06}, pages = {114}, abstract = {

Preliminary reports suggest that the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID- 19) pandemic has led to disproportionate morbidity and mortality among historically disadvantaged populations. We investigate the racial and socioeconomic associations of COVID- 19 hospitalization among 418,794 participants of the UK Biobank, of whom 549 (0.13\%) had been hospitalized. Both Black participants (odds ratio 3.7; 95\%CI 2.5-5.3) and Asian participants (odds ratio 2.2; 95\%CI 1.5-3.2) were at substantially increased risk as compared to White participants. We further observed a striking gradient in COVID- 19 hospitalization rates according to the Townsend Deprivation Index - a composite measure of socioeconomic deprivation - and household income. Adjusting for socioeconomic factors and cardiorespiratory comorbidities led to only modest attenuation of the increased risk in Black participants, adjusted odds ratio 2.4 (95\%CI 1.5-3.7). These observations confirm and extend earlier preliminary and lay press reports of higher morbidity in non-White individuals in the context of a large population of participants in a national biobank. The extent to which this increased risk relates to variation in pre-existing comorbidities, differences in testing or hospitalization patterns, or additional disparities in social determinants of health warrants further study.

}, keywords = {Adult, Aged, Biological Specimen Banks, Continental Population Groups, Coronavirus Infections, COVID-19, Female, Health Status Disparities, Hospitalization, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Pandemics, Pneumonia, Viral, Prospective Studies, Socioeconomic Factors, United Kingdom}, issn = {1475-9276}, doi = {10.1186/s12939-020-01227-y}, author = {Patel, Aniruddh P and Paranjpe, Manish D and Kathiresan, Nina P and Rivas, Manuel A and Khera, Amit V} } @article {90, title = {Rare protein-altering variants in ANGPTL7 lower intraocular pressure and protect against glaucoma.}, journal = {PLoS Genet}, volume = {16}, year = {2020}, month = {2020 05}, pages = {e1008682}, abstract = {

Protein-altering variants that are protective against human disease provide in vivo validation of therapeutic targets. Here we use genotyping data from UK Biobank (n = 337,151 unrelated White British individuals) and FinnGen (n = 176,899) to conduct a search for protein-altering variants conferring lower intraocular pressure (IOP) and protection against glaucoma. Through rare protein-altering variant association analysis, we find a missense variant in ANGPTL7 in UK Biobank (rs28991009, p.Gln175His, MAF = 0.8\%, genotyped in 82,253 individuals with measured IOP and an independent set of 4,238 glaucoma patients and 250,660 controls) that significantly lowers IOP (β = -0.53 and -0.67 mmHg for heterozygotes, -3.40 and -2.37 mmHg for homozygotes, P = 5.96 x 10-9 and 1.07 x 10-13 for corneal compensated and Goldman-correlated IOP, respectively) and is associated with 34\% reduced risk of glaucoma (P = 0.0062). In FinnGen, we identify an ANGPTL7 missense variant at a greater than 50-fold increased frequency in Finland compared with other populations (rs147660927, p.Arg220Cys, MAF Finland = 4.3\%), which was genotyped in 6,537 glaucoma patients and 170,362 controls and is associated with a 29\% lower glaucoma risk (P = 1.9 x 10-12 for all glaucoma types and also protection against its subtypes including exfoliation, primary open-angle, and primary angle-closure). We further find three rarer variants in UK Biobank, including a protein-truncating variant, which confer a strong composite lowering of IOP (P = 0.0012 and 0.24 for Goldman-correlated and corneal compensated IOP, respectively), suggesting the protective mechanism likely resides in the loss of interaction or function. Our results support inhibition or down-regulation of ANGPTL7 as a therapeutic strategy for glaucoma.

}, keywords = {Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Angiopoietin-like Proteins, Biological Specimen Banks, Case-Control Studies, Cohort Studies, Female, Finland, Gene Frequency, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genetics, Population, Genome-Wide Association Study, Glaucoma, Humans, Intraocular Pressure, Loss of Function Mutation, Male, Middle Aged, Mutation, Missense, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, United Kingdom}, issn = {1553-7404}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pgen.1008682}, author = {Tanigawa, Yosuke and Wainberg, Michael and Karjalainen, Juha and Kiiskinen, Tuomo and Venkataraman, Guhan and Lemmel{\"a}, Susanna and Turunen, Joni A and Graham, Robert R and Havulinna, Aki S and Perola, Markus and Palotie, Aarno and Daly, Mark J and Rivas, Manuel A} }