Glatiramer acetate is used therapeutically in multiple sclerosis but also known for adverse effects including elevated coronary artery disease (CAD) risk. The mechanisms underlying the cardiovascular side effects of the medication are unclear. Here, we made use of the chromosomal variation in the genes that are known to be affected by glatiramer treatment. Focusing on genes and gene products reported by drug-gene interaction database to interact with glatiramer acetate we explored a large meta-analysis on CAD genome-wide association studies aiming firstly, to investigate whether variants in these genes also affect cardiovascular risk and secondly, to identify new CAD risk genes. We traced association signals in a 200-kb region around genomic positions of genes interacting with glatiramer in up to 60 801 CAD cases and 123 504 controls. We validated the identified association in additional 21 934 CAD cases and 76 087 controls. We identified three new CAD risk alleles within the TGFB1 region on chromosome 19 that independently affect CAD risk. The lead SNP rs12459996 was genome-wide significantly associated with CAD in the extended meta-analysis (odds ratio 1.09, p = 1.58×10-12). The other two SNPs at the locus were not in linkage disequilibrium with the lead SNP and by a conditional analysis showed p-values of 4.05 × 10-10 and 2.21 × 10-6. Thus, studying genes reported to interact with glatiramer acetate we identified genetic variants that concordantly with the drug increase the risk of CAD. Of these, TGFB1 displayed signal for association. Indeed, the gene has been associated with CAD previously in both in vivo and in vitro studies. Here we establish genome-wide significant association with CAD in large human samples. ; This work was supported by grants from the Fondation Leducq (CADgenomics: Understanding CAD Genes, 12CVD02), the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the e:Med research and funding concept (e:AtheroSysMed, grant 01ZX1313A-2014 and SysInflame, grant 01ZX1306A), and the European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement no HEALTH-F2-2013-601456 (CVgenes-at-target). Further grants were received from the DFG as part of the Sonderforschungsbereich CRC 1123 (B2). T.K. was supported by a DZHK Rotation Grant. I.B. was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) cluster of excellence 'Inflammation at Interfaces'. F.W.A. is supported by a Dekker scholarship-Junior Staff Member 2014T001 -- Netherlands Heart Foundation and UCL Hospitals NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Technical University of Munich within the funding programme Open Access Publishing.
The Data Supplement is available at https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/suppl/10.1161/CIRCGEN.118.002115 ; BACKGROUND: Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease in part caused by lipid uptake in the vascular wall, but the exact underlying mechanisms leading to acute myocardial infarction and stroke remain poorly understood. Large consortia identified genetic susceptibility loci that associate with large artery ischemic stroke and coronary artery disease. However, deciphering their underlying mechanisms are challenging. Histological studies identified destabilizing characteristics in human atherosclerotic plaques that associate with clinical outcome. To what extent established susceptibility loci for large artery ischemic stroke and coronary artery disease relate to plaque characteristics is thus far unknown but may point to novel mechanisms. METHODS: We studied the associations of 61 established cardiovascular risk loci with 7 histological plaque characteristics assessed in 1443 carotid plaque specimens from the Athero-Express Biobank Study. We also assessed if the genotyped cardiovascular risk loci impact the tissue-specific gene expression in 2 independent biobanks, Biobank of Karolinska Endarterectomy and Stockholm Atherosclerosis Gene Expression. RESULTS: A total of 21 established risk variants (out of 61) nominally associated to a plaque characteristic. One variant (rs12539895, risk allele A) at 7q22 associated to a reduction of intraplaque fat, P=5.09×10-6 after correction for multiple testing. We further characterized this 7q22 Locus and show tissue-specific effects of rs12539895 on HBP1 expression in plaques and COG5 expression in whole blood and provide data from public resources showing an association with decreased LDL (low-density lipoprotein) and increase HDL (high-density lipoprotein) in the blood. CONCLUSIONS: Our study supports the view that cardiovascular susceptibility loci may exert their effect by influencing the atherosclerotic plaque characteristics. ; Dr van der Laan is funded through grants from the Netherlands CardioVascular Research Initiative of the Netherlands Heart Foundation (CVON 2011/B019 and CVON 2017-20: Generating the best evidence-based pharmaceutical targets for atherosclerosis [GENIUS I&II]) and the Interuniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands (ICIN, 09.001). Drs van der Laan and Haitjema are both funded through the FP7 EU project CVgenes@target (HEALTH-F2-2013–601456). Dr Siemelink is funded by the European Union (BiomarCaRE, grant number: HEALTH-2011–278913), and the technology foundation Stichting voor de Technische Wetenschappen through the Danone partnership program (Project 11679). The UCL Hospitals NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and the Dutch Heart Foundation (Junior Staff Member 2014T001) supported by Dr Asselbergs. The BiKE study was conducted with support from the Swedish Heart and Lung Foundation, the Swedish Research Council (K2009-65X-2233-01-3, K2013-65X-06816-30-4, and 349-2007-8703), Uppdrag Besegra Stroke (P581/2011–123), the Strategic Cardiovascular Programs of Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm County Council, the Stockholm County Council (ALF2011-0260 and ALF-2011-0279), the Foundation for Strategic Research and the European Commission (CarTarDis). ; Peer-reviewed ; Publisher Version
The file associated with this record is under embargo until 12 months after publication, in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. The full text may be available through the publisher links provided above. ; BACKGROUND: Aortic valve stenosis (AVS) and coronary artery disease (CAD) have a significant genetic contribution and commonly co-exist. To compare and contrast genetic determinants of the two diseases, we investigated associations of the LPA and 9p21 loci, i.e. the two strongest CAD risk loci, with risk of AVS. METHODS: We genotyped the CAD-associated variants at the LPA (rs10455872) and 9p21 loci (rs1333049) in the GeneCAST (Genetics of Calcific Aortic STenosis) Consortium and conducted a meta-analysis for their association with AVS. Cases and controls were stratified by CAD status. External validation of findings was undertaken in five cohorts including 7880 cases and 851,152 controls. RESULTS: In the meta-analysis including 4651 cases and 8231 controls the CAD-associated allele at the LPA locus was associated with increased risk of AVS (OR 1.37; 95%CI 1.24-1.52, p = 6.9 × 10-10) with a larger effect size in those without CAD (OR 1.53; 95%CI 1.31-1.79) compared to those with CAD (OR 1.27; 95%CI 1.12-1.45). The CAD-associated allele at 9p21 was associated with a trend towards lower risk of AVS (OR 0.93; 95%CI 0.88-0.99, p = 0.014). External validation confirmed the association of the LPA risk allele with risk of AVS (OR 1.37; 95%CI 1.27-1.47), again with a higher effect size in those without CAD. The small protective effect of the 9p21 CAD risk allele could not be replicated (OR 0.98; 95%CI 0.95-1.02). CONCLUSIONS: Our study confirms the association of the LPA locus with risk of AVS, with a higher effect in those without concomitant CAD. Overall, 9p21 was not associated with AVS. ; Collection and genotyping of the GeneCAST Leicester cohorts were supported by the Leicester NIHR Biomedical Centre. NJS and CPN are funded by the British Heart Foundation and NJS is a NIHR Senior Investigator. IRM is supported by a NHS Education for Scotland/Chief Scientist Office Postdoctoral Clinical Lectureship [grant number: PCL17/07]. CCL acknowledges support from the British Heart Foundation [grant numbers: PG/16/32/32132 and PG/14/4/30539]. JGS was supported by the European Research Council, Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, the Wallenberg Center for Molecular Medicine at Lund University, the Swedish Research Council, the Crafoord Foundation, governmental funding of clinical research within the Swedish National Health Service, Skåne University Hospital in Lund, and the Scania county. TK is funded by the Corona Foundation as part of the Junior Research Group Translational Cardiovascular Genomics [S199/10070/2017]. ; Peer-reviewed ; Post-print
Runs of homozygosity (ROHs) are recognised signature of recessive inheritance. Contributions of ROHs to the genetic architecture of coronary artery disease and regulation of gene expression in cells relevant to atherosclerosis are not known. Our combined analysis of 24,320 individuals from 11 populations of white European ethnicity showed an association between coronary artery disease and both the count and the size of ROHs. Individuals with coronary artery disease had approximately 0.63 (95% CI: 0.4-0.8) excess of ROHs when compared to coronary artery disease-free controls (P=1.49x10-9 ). The average total length of ROHs was approximately 1046.92 (95% CI: 634.4-1459.5) kb greater in individuals with coronary artery disease than controls (P=6.61x10-7 ). None of the identified individual ROHs was associated with coronary artery disease after correction for multiple testing. However, in aggregate burden analysis, ROHs favouring increased risk of coronary artery disease were much more common than those showing the opposite direction of association with coronary artery disease (P=2.69x10-33). Individual ROHs showed significant associations with monocyte and macrophage expression of genes in their close proximity – subjects with several individual ROHs showed significant differences in the expression of 44 mRNAs in monocytes and 17 mRNAs in macrophages when compared to subjects without those ROHs. This study provides evidence for an excess of homozygosity in coronary artery disease in outbred populations and suggest the potential biological relevance of ROHs in cells of importance to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. ; This study was supported by the Alumni Association of University of Leicester PhD studentship and International Mentoring Travel Award by American Heart Association to PC. MT is supported by the British Heart Foundation. NJS holds a personal chair supported by the British Heart Foundation and is a UK NIHR senior investigator. CPN is funded by the British Heart Foundation. The Cardiogenics project was supported by the European Union 6th Framework Program (LSHM-CT-2006-037593). The UKBS collection of Common Controls has been funded by the Wellcome Trust grant 084183/Z/07/Z and by NIHR programme grant to NHSBT (RP-PG-0310-1002). The collection was established as part of the WTCCC.
This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the e:Med research and funding concept (grant 01ZX1313A-2014). The ADVANCE study was supported by a grant from the Reynold's Foundation and NHLBI grant HL087647. Sample collection in the Cardiogenics Consortium (http://www.cardiogenics.eu/web/) was funded by the 6th Framework Program of the European Union (LSHM-CT-2006-037593). We thank all the participants and clinicians involved in the recruitment process at Cambridge and Leicester (UK), Luebeck and Regensburg (Germany), and Paris (France). CATHGEN was supported by NIH grants HL095987 and HL101621. The Cleveland Clinic Gene Bank study was funded by P01HL076491 (to S.L.H). EGCUT was supported by Estonian Research Council grant no. IUT20-60 and Research Roadmap grant no. 3.2.0304.11-0312 and by University Tartu grant no. ARENG SP1GV. The FGENTCARD-Functional Genomic diagnostic tools for coronary artery disease project was funded by an EU FP6 award. We thank the patients for agreeing to participate in the study. We thank Sonia Youhanna, Nour Moukalled and Bariaa Khalil for their help with subject recruitment and data collection. The work of FINCAVAS was supported by the Competitive Research Funding of the Tampere University Hospital (Grant 9M048 and 9N035), the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research, the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, Finland, and the Tampere Tuberculosis Foundation. The authors thank the staff of the Department of Clinical Physiology for collecting the exercise test data. The GerMIFS studies were supported by grants from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of NGFN and NGFN-plus (Atherogenomics) and e:Med research and funding concept (e:AtheroSysMed, grant 01ZX1313A-2014), the Fondation Leducq (CADgenomics: Understanding CAD Genes, 12CVD02), and the European Union Sixth Framework Programme FP6 (under grant agreement FP6-LIFESCIHEALTH (Cardiogenics)) and the Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement n° HEALTH-F2-2013-601456 (CVgenes-at-target). The Heart Protection Study (HPS) (ISRCTN48489393) was supported by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC), British Heart Foundation, Merck and Co (manufacturers of simvastatin), and Roche Vitamins Ltd (manufacturers of vitamins). Genotyping was supported by a grant to Oxford University and CNG from Merck and Co. Jemma C. Hopewell acknowledges support from the British Heart Foundation (FS/14/55/30806). HPS acknowledges the National Blood Service (NBS) donors and UK Twin study for using as population controls. A full list of the investigators who contributed to the generation of the NBS data is available from www.wtccc.org.uk. Funding for the project was provided by the Wellcome Trust under award 07611. The UK Twin study was funded by the Wellcome Trust; European Community"s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013). The Helsinki Sudden Death Study (HSDS) was financially supported by EU's 7th Framework Programme (grant no. 201668 for AtheroRemo), the Tampere University Foundation, the Tampere University Hospital Medical Funds (grants X51001, 9M048 and 9N035 for Terho Lehtimäki, the Emil Aaltonen Foundation (Terho Lehtimäki, the Finnish Foundation of Cardiovascular Research (Terho Lehtimäki, Pekka J. Karhunen), the Pirkanmaa Regional Fund of the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, and the Tampere Tuberculosis Foundation (Terho Lehtimäki). LIFE-Heart is a part of the LIFE – Leipzig Research Center for Civilization Diseases, Universität Leipzig. LIFE is funded by means of the European Union, by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and by means of the Free State of Saxony within the framework of the excellence initiative. The LOLIPOP study is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, the British Heart Foundation (SP/04/002), the Medical Research Council (G0601966, G0700931), the Wellcome Trust (084723/Z/08/Z), the NIHR (RP-PG-0407-10371), European Union FP7 (EpiMigrant, 279143) and Action on Hearing (G51). We thank the participants and research staff who made the study possible. LURIC was supported by the 7th Framework Program (integrated project AtheroRemo, grant agreement number 201668 and RiskyCAD, grant agreement number 305739) of the European Union and by the INTERREG IV Oberrhein Program (Project A28, Genetic mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases) with support from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Wissenschaftsoffensive TMO. We extend our appreciation to the participants of the LURIC study and thank the LURIC study team who were either temporarily or permanently involved in patient recruitment as well as sample and data handling, in addition to the laboratory staff at the Ludwigshafen General Hospital and the Universities of Freiburg and Ulm, Germany. The MIGen study was funded by R01HL087676 from the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The Mount Sinai IPM Biobank Program is supported by The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies. It was in part supported by NHGRI U01HG007417. OHGS_A2, OHGS_B2, and OHGS_C2 were funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (# MOP-2380941 to R.M.), (#MOP82810, MOP77682 to R.R., A.F.S. & R.M.); Canada Foundation for Innovation (#11966 to R.R., R.M. & A.F.S.; Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada (#NA6001, #NA6650 to R.M). PIVUS was supported by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Wallenberg Academy Fellow), European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant), Swedish Diabetes Foundation (grant no. 2013-024), Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2012-1397), and Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation (20120197). We thank the SNP&SEQ Technology Platform in Uppsala (www.genotyping.se) for excellent genotyping. The computations were performed on resources provided by SNIC through Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science (UPPMAX) under Project b2011036. PROCARDIS was supported by the European Community Sixth Framework Program (LSHM-CT- 2007-037273), AstraZeneca, the British Heart Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, the Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg Foundation, the Strategic Cardiovascular Program of Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm County Council, the Foundation for Strategic Research and the Stockholm County Council (560283). Research in SDS was partly supported by NIH grants -R01DK082766 funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and NOT-HG-11-009 funded by National Genome Research Institute, and VPR Bridge grant from University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, USA. Recruitment for THISEAS was partially funded by a research grant (PENED 2003) from the Greek General Secretary of Research and Technology; we thank all the dieticians and clinicians for their contribution to the project. TwinGene was supported by grants from the Ministry for Higher Education, the Swedish Research Council (M-2005-1112 and 2009-2298), GenomEUtwin (EU/QLRT-2001-01254; QLG2-CT-2002-01254), NIH grant DK U01-066134, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Wallenberg Academy Fellow), European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant), Swedish Diabetes Foundation (grant no. 2013-024), Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2012-1397), and Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation (20120197). We thank the SNP&SEQ Technology Platform in Uppsala (www. genotyping.se) for excellent genotyping. The computations were performed on resources provided by SNIC through Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science (UPPMAX) under Project b2011036. ULSAM was supported by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Wallenberg Academy Fellow), European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant), Swedish Diabetes Foundation (grant no. 2013-024), Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2012-1397), and Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation (20120197). We thank the SNP&SEQ Technology Platform in Uppsala (www.genotyping.se) for excellent genotyping. The computations were performed on resources provided by SNIC through Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science (UPPMAX) under Project b2011036. Recruitment for the WTCCC study was funded by the British Heart Foundation and genotyping by the Wellcome Trust. Themistocles L. Assimes was supported by an NIDDK career development award DK088942. Panos Deloukas's work forms part of the research themes contributing to the translational research portfolio of Barts Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit which is supported and funded by the National Institute for Health Research. Analysis was partly supported by BHF grant (to Panos Deloukas) RG/14/5/30893. Martin Farrall and Hugh Watkins acknowledge the support of the Wellcome Trust core award (090532/Z/09/Z) and Martin Farrall, Hugh Watkins and Theodosios Kyriakou, the BHF Centre of Research Excellence. Anuj Goel, Hugh Watkins and Theodosios Kyriakou acknowledge European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement no. HEALTH-F2-2013-601456 (CVGenes@Target) & and Anuj Goel, the Wellcome Trust Institutional strategic support fund. The UK Twin study was funded by the Wellcome Trust; European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007- 2013). PoBI samples from the Wellcome Trust funded People of the British Isles project. Sekar Kathiresan is supported by the Donovan Family Foundation, Fondation Leducq, MGH Research Scholar Award, and R01 HL107816. Andrew P. Morris is a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow in Basic Biomedical Science, funded under grant WT098017. Christopher P. Nelson and Nilesh J. Samani are funded by the British Heart Foundation and Nilesh J. Samani is a UK NIUHR Senior Investigator. Christopher P. Nelson and Nilesh J. Samani are funded by the British Heart Foundation and Nilesh J. Samani is a UK NIUHR Senior Investigator. Samuli Ripatti was supported by the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence in Complex Disease Genetics (Grant No. 213506 and 129680), Academy of Finland (Grant No. 251217 and 285380), the Finnish foundation for Cardiovascular Research, the Sigrid Juselius Foundation and the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) through the BioSHaRE-EU (Biobank Standardisation and Harmonisation for Research Excellence in the European Union) project, grant agreement 261433. Alexandre F. R. Stewart is supported by operating grants from the Canadian Institute of Health Research and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Hong-Hee Won is supported by a postdoctoral award from the American Heart Association (15POST23280019).
BACKGROUND: Epidemiological studies show that high circulating cystatin C is associated with risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), independent of creatinine-based renal function measurements. It is unclear whether this relationship is causal, arises from residual confounding, and/or is a consequence of reverse causation. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to use Mendelian randomization to investigate whether cystatin C is causally related to CVD in the general population. METHODS: We incorporated participant data from 16 prospective cohorts (n = 76,481) with 37,126 measures of cystatin C and added genetic data from 43 studies (n = 252,216) with 63,292 CVD events. We used the common variant rs911119 in CST3 as an instrumental variable to investigate the causal role of cystatin C in CVD, including coronary heart disease, ischemic stroke, and heart failure. RESULTS: Cystatin C concentrations were associated with CVD risk after adjusting for age, sex, and traditional risk factors (relative risk: 1.82 per doubling of cystatin C; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.56 to 2.13; p = 2.12 × 10(-14)). The minor allele of rs911119 was associated with decreased serum cystatin C (6.13% per allele; 95% CI: 5.75 to 6.50; p = 5.95 × 10(-211)), explaining 2.8% of the observed variation in cystatin C. Mendelian randomization analysis did not provide evidence for a causal role of cystatin C, with a causal relative risk for CVD of 1.00 per doubling cystatin C (95% CI: 0.82 to 1.22; p = 0.994), which was statistically different from the observational estimate (p = 1.6 × 10(-5)). A causal effect of cystatin C was not detected for any individual component of CVD. CONCLUSIONS: Mendelian randomization analyses did not support a causal role of cystatin C in the etiology of CVD. As such, therapeutics targeted at lowering circulating cystatin C are unlikely to be effective in preventing CVD. ; The individual study sponsor(s) had no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. Dr. Isgum is supported by research grants from Pie Medical Imaging, 3Mensio Medical Imaging B.V., the NWO and Foundation for Technological Sciences under Project 12726, The Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development, and the Dutch Cancer Society. Dr. Arpegård has received funding through the Stockholm County Council (combined clinical residency and PhD training program). Dr. Amouyel has received personal fees from Servier, Hoffman Laroche, Total, Genoscreen, Alzprotect, Fondation Plan Alzheimer, and Takeda outside of the submitted work; and has shares in Genoscreen. Dr. Morris is a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow in Basic Biomedical Science under grant number WT098017. Dr. Worrall has received compensation for his role as deputy editor of the Journal of Neurology; and has received National Institutes of Health funding through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (U-01 NS069208) and National Human Genome Research Institute (U-01 HG005160). Dr. Samani is supported by the British Heart Foundation (BHF); and is a National Institute for Health Research Senior Investigator. Dr. Nelson is supported by the BHF. Dr. Franco works in ErasmusAGE, a center for aging research across the life course funded by Nestlé Nutrition (Nestec Ltd.), Metagenics Inc., and AXA; Nestlé Nutrition (Nestec Ltd.), Metagenics Inc., and AXA had no role in design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript. Dr. Patel is supported by a BHF Intermediate Fellowship. Dr. Koenig has received funds through NGFNplus, project number 01GS0834; has received research grants from Abbott, Roche Diagnostics, Beckmann, and Singulex; has received honorarium for lectures from AstraZeneca, Novartis, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Amgen, and Actavis; and has served as a consultant for Novartis, Pfizer, The Medicines Company, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Merck Sharp & Dohme, and GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Jukema is an Established Clinical Investigator of the Netherlands Heart Foundation (grant 2001 D 032). Dr. Svensson has received a grant from the Swedish Society of Medicine (SLS-412071). Dr. Kivimaki has received funding through the Medical Research Council (K013351), Economic and Social Research Council, and National Institutes of Health (HL36310). Dr. Dehghan is supported by a Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) grant (VENI, 916.12.154) and the EUR Fellowship; and has received consultancy and research support from Metagenics Inc. (outside the scope of this work). Dr. Ingelsson is supported by grants from Göran Gustafsson Foundation, Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation (20140422), Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse), European Research Council (ERC-StG-335395), Swedish Diabetes Foundation (Diabetesfonden; grant no. 2013-024), and the Swedish Research Council (VR; grant no. 2012-1397). Dr. de Bakker is an employee of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Ärnlöv was funded by the Swedish Research Council (2012-1727, 2012-2215), Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, Thuréus Foundation, the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, Dalarna University, and Uppsala University. Dr. Asselbergs is supported by a Dekker scholarship-Junior Staff Member 2014T001–Netherlands Heart Foundation and UCL Hospitals National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement n° HEALTH-F2-2013-601456 (CVgenes-at-target). All other authors have reported that they have no relationships relevant to the contents of this paper to disclose. ; Peer-reviewed ; Publisher Version
Supplementary information accompanies this paper at http://www.nature.com/srep ; In recent years, genome-wide association studies have identified 58 independent risk loci for coronary artery disease (CAD) on the autosome. However, due to the sex-specific data structure of the X chromosome, it has been excluded from most of these analyses. While females have 2 copies of chromosome X, males have only one. Also, one of the female X chromosomes may be inactivated. Therefore, special test statistics and quality control procedures are required. Thus, little is known about the role of X-chromosomal variants in CAD. To fill this gap, we conducted a comprehensive X-chromosome-wide meta-analysis including more than 43,000 CAD cases and 58,000 controls from 35 international study cohorts. For quality control, sex-specific filters were used to adequately take the special structure of X-chromosomal data into account. For single study analyses, several logistic regression models were calculated allowing for inactivation of one female X-chromosome, adjusting for sex and investigating interactions between sex and genetic variants. Then, meta-analyses including all 35 studies were conducted using random effects models. None of the investigated models revealed genome-wide significant associations for any variant. Although we analyzed the largest-to-date sample, currently available methods were not able to detect any associations of X-chromosomal variants with CAD. ; This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the e:Med research and funding concept (grant 01ZX1313A-2014). The ADVANCE study was supported by a grant from the Reynold's Foundation and NHLBI grant HL087647. Sample collection in the Cardiogenics Consortium (http://www.cardiogenics.eu/web/) was funded by the 6th Framework Program of the European Union (LSHM-CT-2006-037593). We thank all the participants and clinicians involved in the recruitment process at Cambridge and Leicester (UK), Luebeck and Regensburg (Germany), and Paris (France). CATHGEN was supported by NIH grants HL095987 and HL101621. The Cleveland Clinic Gene Bank study was funded by P01HL076491 (to S.L.H). EGCUT was supported by Estonian Research Council grant no. IUT20-60 and Research Roadmap grant no. 3.2.0304.11-0312 and by University Tartu grant no. ARENG SP1GV. The FGENTCARD-Functional Genomic diagnostic tools for coronary artery disease project was funded by an EU FP6 award. We thank the patients for agreeing to participate in the study. We thank Sonia Youhanna, Nour Moukalled and Bariaa Khalil for their help with subject recruitment and data collection. The work of FINCAVAS was supported by the Competitive Research Funding of the Tampere University Hospital (Grant 9M048 and 9N035), the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research, the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, Finland, and the Tampere Tuberculosis Foundation. The authors thank the staff of the Department of Clinical Physiology for collecting the exercise test data. The GerMIFS studies were supported by grants from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of NGFN and NGFN-plus (Atherogenomics) and e:Med research and funding concept (e:AtheroSysMed, grant 01ZX1313A-2014), the Fondation Leducq (CADgenomics: Understanding CAD Genes, 12CVD02), and the European Union Sixth Framework Programme FP6 (under grant agreement FP6-LIFESCIHEALTH (Cardiogenics)) and the Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement n° HEALTH-F2-2013-601456 (CVgenes-at-target). The Heart Protection Study (HPS) (ISRCTN48489393) was supported by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC), British Heart Foundation, Merck and Co (manufacturers of simvastatin), and Roche Vitamins Ltd (manufacturers of vitamins). Genotyping was supported by a grant to Oxford University and CNG from Merck and Co. Jemma C. Hopewell acknowledges support from the British Heart Foundation (FS/14/55/30806). HPS acknowledges the National Blood Service (NBS) donors and UK Twin study for using as population controls. A full list of the investigators who contributed to the generation of the NBS data is available from www.wtccc.org.uk. Funding for the project was provided by the Wellcome Trust under award 07611. The UK Twin study was funded by the Wellcome Trust; European Community"s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013). The Helsinki Sudden Death Study (HSDS) was financially supported by EU's 7th Framework Programme (grant no. 201668 for AtheroRemo), the Tampere University Foundation, the Tampere University Hospital Medical Funds (grants X51001, 9M048 and 9N035 for Terho Lehtimäki, the Emil Aaltonen Foundation (Terho Lehtimäki, the Finnish Foundation of Cardiovascular Research (Terho Lehtimäki, Pekka J. Karhunen), the Pirkanmaa Regional Fund of the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, and the Tampere Tuberculosis Foundation (Terho Lehtimäki). LIFE-Heart is a part of the LIFE – Leipzig Research Center for Civilization Diseases, Universität Leipzig. LIFE is funded by means of the European Union, by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and by means of the Free State of Saxony within the framework of the excellence initiative. The LOLIPOP study is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, the British Heart Foundation (SP/04/002), the Medical Research Council (G0601966, G0700931), the Wellcome Trust (084723/Z/08/Z), the NIHR (RP-PG-0407-10371), European Union FP7 (EpiMigrant, 279143) and Action on Hearing (G51). We thank the participants and research staff who made the study possible. LURIC was supported by the 7th Framework Program (integrated project AtheroRemo, grant agreement number 201668 and RiskyCAD, grant agreement number 305739) of the European Union and by the INTERREG IV Oberrhein Program (Project A28, Genetic mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases) with support from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Wissenschaftsoffensive TMO. We extend our appreciation to the participants of the LURIC study and thank the LURIC study team who were either temporarily or permanently involved in patient recruitment as well as sample and data handling, in addition to the laboratory staff at the Ludwigshafen General Hospital and the Universities of Freiburg and Ulm, Germany. The MIGen study was funded by R01HL087676 from the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The Mount Sinai IPM Biobank Program is supported by The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies. It was in part supported by NHGRI U01HG007417. OHGS_A2, OHGS_B2, and OHGS_C2 were funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (# MOP-2380941 to R.M.), (#MOP82810, MOP77682 to R.R., A.F.S. & R.M.); Canada Foundation for Innovation (#11966 to R.R., R.M. & A.F.S.; Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada (#NA6001, #NA6650 to R.M). PIVUS was supported by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Wallenberg Academy Fellow), European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant), Swedish Diabetes Foundation (grant no. 2013-024), Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2012-1397), and Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation (20120197). We thank the SNP&SEQ Technology Platform in Uppsala (www.genotyping.se) for excellent genotyping. The computations were performed on resources provided by SNIC through Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science (UPPMAX) under Project b2011036. PROCARDIS was supported by the European Community Sixth Framework Program (LSHM-CT- 2007-037273), AstraZeneca, the British Heart Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, the Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg Foundation, the Strategic Cardiovascular Program of Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm County Council, the Foundation for Strategic Research and the Stockholm County Council (560283). Research in SDS was partly supported by NIH grants -R01DK082766 funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and NOT-HG-11-009 funded by National Genome Research Institute, and VPR Bridge grant from University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, USA. Recruitment for THISEAS was partially funded by a research grant (PENED 2003) from the Greek General Secretary of Research and Technology; we thank all the dieticians and clinicians for their contribution to the project. TwinGene was supported by grants from the Ministry for Higher Education, the Swedish Research Council (M-2005-1112 and 2009-2298), GenomEUtwin (EU/QLRT-2001-01254; QLG2-CT-2002-01254), NIH grant DK U01-066134, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Wallenberg Academy Fellow), European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant), Swedish Diabetes Foundation (grant no. 2013-024), Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2012-1397), and Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation (20120197). We thank the SNP&SEQ Technology Platform in Uppsala (www.genotyping.se) for excellent genotyping. The computations were performed on resources provided by SNIC through Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science (UPPMAX) under Project b2011036. ULSAM was supported by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Wallenberg Academy Fellow), European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant), Swedish Diabetes Foundation (grant no. 2013-024), Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2012-1397), and Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation (20120197). We thank the SNP&SEQ Technology Platform in Uppsala (www.genotyping.se) for excellent genotyping. The computations were performed on resources provided by SNIC through Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science (UPPMAX) under Project b2011036. Recruitment for the WTCCC study was funded by the British Heart Foundation and genotyping by the Wellcome Trust. Themistocles L. Assimes was supported by an NIDDK career development award DK088942. Panos Deloukas's work forms part of the research themes contributing to the translational research portfolio of Barts Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit which is supported and funded by the National Institute for Health Research. Analysis was partly supported by BHF grant (to Panos Deloukas) RG/14/5/30893. Martin Farrall and Hugh Watkins acknowledge the support of the Wellcome Trust core award (090532/Z/09/Z) and Martin Farrall, Hugh Watkins and Theodosios Kyriakou, the BHF Centre of Research Excellence. Anuj Goel, Hugh Watkins and Theodosios Kyriakou acknowledge European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement no. HEALTH-F2-2013-601456 (CVGenes@Target) & and Anuj Goel, the Wellcome Trust Institutional strategic support fund. The UK Twin study was funded by the Wellcome Trust; European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013). PoBI samples from the Wellcome Trust funded People of the British Isles project. Sekar Kathiresan is supported by the Donovan Family Foundation, Fondation Leducq, MGH Research Scholar Award, and R01 HL107816. Andrew P. Morris is a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow in Basic Biomedical Science, funded under grant WT098017. Christopher P. Nelson and Nilesh J. Samani are funded by the British Heart Foundation and Nilesh J. Samani is a UK NIUHR Senior Investigator. Christopher P. Nelson and Nilesh J. Samani are funded by the British Heart Foundation and Nilesh J. Samani is a UK NIUHR Senior Investigator. Samuli Ripatti was supported by the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence in Complex Disease Genetics (Grant No. 213506 and 129680), Academy of Finland (Grant No. 251217 and 285380), the Finnish foundation for Cardiovascular Research, the Sigrid Juselius Foundation and the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) through the BioSHaRE-EU (Biobank Standardisation and Harmonisation for Research Excellence in the European Union) project, grant agreement 261433. Alexandre F. R. Stewart is supported by operating grants from the Canadian Institute of Health Research and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Hong-Hee Won is supported by a postdoctoral award from the American Heart Association (15POST23280019). ; Peer-reviewed ; Publisher Version
High plasma HDL cholesterol is associated with reduced risk of myocardial infarction, but whether this association is causal is unclear. Exploiting the fact that genotypes are randomly assigned at meiosis, are independent of non-genetic confounding, and are unmodified by disease processes, mendelian randomisation can be used to test the hypothesis that the association of a plasma biomarker with disease is causal.We performed two mendelian randomisation analyses. First, we used as an instrument a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the endothelial lipase gene (LIPG Asn396Ser) and tested this SNP in 20 studies (20,913 myocardial infarction cases, 95,407 controls). Second, we used as an instrument a genetic score consisting of 14 common SNPs that exclusively associate with HDL cholesterol and tested this score in up to 12,482 cases of myocardial infarction and 41,331 controls. As a positive control, we also tested a genetic score of 13 common SNPs exclusively associated with LDL cholesterol.Carriers of the LIPG 396Ser allele (2·6% frequency) had higher HDL cholesterol (0·14 mmol/L higher, p=8×10(-13)) but similar levels of other lipid and non-lipid risk factors for myocardial infarction compared with non-carriers. This difference in HDL cholesterol is expected to decrease risk of myocardial infarction by 13% (odds ratio [OR] 0·87, 95% CI 0·84-0·91). However, we noted that the 396Ser allele was not associated with risk of myocardial infarction (OR 0·99, 95% CI 0·88-1·11, p=0·85). From observational epidemiology, an increase of 1 SD in HDL cholesterol was associated with reduced risk of myocardial infarction (OR 0·62, 95% CI 0·58-0·66). However, a 1 SD increase in HDL cholesterol due to genetic score was not associated with risk of myocardial infarction (OR 0·93, 95% CI 0·68-1·26, p=0·63). For LDL cholesterol, the estimate from observational epidemiology (a 1 SD increase in LDL cholesterol associated with OR 1·54, 95% CI 1·45-1·63) was concordant with that from genetic score (OR 2·13, 95% CI 1·69-2·69, p=2×10(-10)).Some genetic mechanisms that raise plasma HDL cholesterol do not seem to lower risk of myocardial infarction. These data challenge the concept that raising of plasma HDL cholesterol will uniformly translate into reductions in risk of myocardial infarction.US National Institutes of Health, The Wellcome Trust, European Union, British Heart Foundation, and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
BACKGROUND: Genome-wide association studies have so far identified 56 loci associated with risk of coronary artery disease (CAD). Many CAD loci show pleiotropy; that is, they are also associated with other diseases or traits. OBJECTIVES: This study sought to systematically test if genetic variants identified for non-CAD diseases/traits also associate with CAD and to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the extent of pleiotropy of all CAD loci. METHODS: In discovery analyses involving 42,335 CAD cases and 78,240 control subjects we tested the association of 29,383 common (minor allele frequency >5%) single nucleotide polymorphisms available on the exome array, which included a substantial proportion of known or suspected single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with common diseases or traits as of 2011. Suggestive association signals were replicated in an additional 30,533 cases and 42,530 control subjects. To evaluate pleiotropy, we tested CAD loci for association with cardiovascular risk factors (lipid traits, blood pressure phenotypes, body mass index, diabetes, and smoking behavior), as well as with other diseases/traits through interrogation of currently available genome-wide association study catalogs. RESULTS: We identified 6 new loci associated with CAD at genome-wide significance: on 2q37 (KCNJ13-GIGYF2), 6p21 (C2), 11p15 (MRVI1-CTR9), 12q13 (LRP1), 12q24 (SCARB1), and 16q13 (CETP). Risk allele frequencies ranged from 0.15 to 0.86, and odds ratio per copy of the risk allele ranged from 1.04 to 1.09. Of 62 new and known CAD loci, 24 (38.7%) showed statistical association with a traditional cardiovascular risk factor, with some showing multiple associations, and 29 (47%) showed associations at p < 1 × 10(-4) with a range of other diseases/traits. CONCLUSIONS: We identified 6 loci associated with CAD at genome-wide significance. Several CAD loci show substantial pleiotropy, which may help us understand the mechanisms by which these loci affect CAD risk. ; Drs. Akinsanya, Wu, Yin, and Reilly are employees of Merck Sharp & Dohme; and Dr. Vogt was an employee of Merck when aspects of this research was conducted, but is now retired from Merck. A cholesteryl ester transfer protein inhibitor, Anacetrapib (MK-0859), is currently undergoing clinical investigation in the REVEAL outcome trial sponsored by Merck Sharp & Dohme. Dr. Schick is an employee of Recombine. Dr. Dube has equity in DalCor Pharmaceuticals. Dr. McCarthy is a member of advisory boards for Pfizer and Novo Nordisk; has received honoraria from Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, and Eli Lilly; and has received research funding provided by Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, Servier, Sanofi-Aventis, Janssen, Roche, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Takeda, Merck, and AstraZeneca. Dr. Ferrieres has received grants from Merck Sharp & Dohme, Amgen, and Sanofi. Dr. Sattar has served as a consultant for Amgen and Sanofi. Dr. Butterworth has received grants from Pfizer and Merck. Dr. Danesh has served as a consultant for Takeda; has served on the Novartis Cardiovascular & Metabolic Advisory Board and International Cardiovascular and Metabolism Research and Development Portfolio Committee of Novartis; has served on the UK Atherosclerosis Advisory Board of Merck Sharp & Dohme; has served on the advisory board of Sanofi; has served on the Pfizer Population Research Advisory Panel; and has financial relationships with the British Heart Foundation, BUPA Foundation, diaDexus, European Research Council, European Union, Evelyn Trust, Fogarty International Centre, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Health Service Blood and Transplant, National Institute for Health Research, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Takeda, The Wellcome Trust, UK Biobank, University of British Columbia, and UK Medical Research Council. Dr. Tardif has received research grants from Amarin, AstraZeneca, Merck, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Sanofi, Servier, and DalCor; has received honoraria from Pfizer (to his institution), Servier, DalCor, and Sanofi (to his institution); and has received modest equity interest from DalCor. Dr. Kathiresan has financial/other relationships with Regeneron, Bayer, Catabasis, Merck, Celera, Genomics PLC, San Therapeutics, Novartis, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, Alnylam, Eli Lilly, Leerink Partners, and Noble Insights. All other authors have reported that they have no relationships relevant to the contents of this paper to disclose. A full list of acknowledgments and funding sources is included in the Online Appendix.
Background High plasma HDL cholesterol is associated with reduced risk of myocardial infarction, but whether this association is causal is unclear. Exploiting the fact that genotypes are randomly assigned at meiosis, are independent of non-genetic confounding, and are unmodifi ed by disease processes, mendelian random isation can be used to test the hypothesis that the association of a plasma biomarker with disease is causal. Methods We performed two mendelian randomisation analyses. First, we used as an instrument a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the endothelial lipase gene (LIPG Asn396Ser) and tested this SNP in 20 studies (20 913 myocardial infarction cases, 95 407 controls). Second, we used as an instrument a genetic score consisting of 14 common SNPs that exclusively associate with HDL cholesterol and tested this score in up to 12 482 cases of myocardial infarction and 41 331 controls. As a positive control, we also tested a genetic score of 13 common SNPs exclusively associated with LDL cholesterol. Findings Carriers of the LIPG 396Ser allele (2·6% frequency) had higher HDL cholesterol (0·14 mmol/L higher, p=8×10– ¹³) but similar levels of other lipid and non-lipid risk factors for myocardial infarction compared with noncarriers. This diff erence in HDL cholesterol is expected to decrease risk of myocardial infarction by 13% (odds ratio [OR] 0·87, 95% CI 0·84–0·91). However, we noted that the 396Ser allele was not associated with risk of myocardial infarction (OR 0·99, 95% CI 0·88–1·11, p=0·85). From observational epidemiology, an increase of 1 SD in HDL cholesterol was associated with reduced risk of myocardial infarction (OR 0·62, 95% CI 0·58–0·66). However, a 1 SD increase in HDL cholesterol due to genetic score was not associated with risk of myocardial infarction (OR 0·93, 95% CI 0·68–1·26, p=0·63). For LDL cholesterol, the estimate from observational epidemiology (a 1 SD increase in LDL cholesterol associated with OR 1·54, 95% CI 1·45–1·63) was concordant with that from genetic score (OR 2·13, 95% CI 1·69–2·69, p=2×10– ¹⁰). Interpretation Some genetic mechanisms that raise plasma HDL cholesterol do not seem to lower risk of myocardial infarction. These data challenge the concept that raising of plasma HDL cholesterol will uniformly translate into reductions in risk of myocardial infarction. Funding US National Institutes of Health, The Wellcome Trust, European Union, British Heart Foundation, and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. ; 115770
