Identification of novel risk loci, causal insights, and heritable risk for Parkinson's disease: a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies

Background Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in Parkinson's disease have increased the scope of biological knowledge about the disease over the past decade. We aimed to use the largest aggregate of GWAS data to identify novel risk loci and gain further insight into the causes of Parkinson's disease. Methods We did a meta-analysis of 17 datasets from Parkinson's disease GWAS available from European ancestry samples to nominate novel loci for disease risk. These datasets incorporated all available data. We then used these data to estimate heritable risk and develop predictive models of this heritability. We also used large gene expression and methylation resources to examine possible functional consequences as well as tissue, cell type, and biological pathway enrichments for the identified risk factors. Additionally, we examined shared genetic risk between Parkinson's disease and other phenotypes of interest via genetic correlations followed by Mendelian randomisation. Findings Between Oct 1, 2017, and Aug 9, 2018, we analysed 7·8 million single nucleotide polymorphisms in 37 688 cases, 18 618 UK Biobank proxy-cases (ie, individuals who do not have Parkinson's disease but have a first degree relative that does), and 1·4 million controls. We identified 90 independent genome-wide significant risk signals across 78 genomic regions, including 38 novel independent risk signals in 37 loci. These 90 variants explained 16–36% of the heritable risk of Parkinson's disease depending on prevalence. Integrating methylation and expression data within a Mendelian randomisation framework identified putatively associated genes at 70 risk signals underlying GWAS loci for follow-up functional studies. Tissue-specific expression enrichment analyses suggested Parkinson's disease loci were heavily brain-enriched, with specific neuronal cell types being implicated from single cell data. We found significant genetic correlations with brain volumes (false discovery rate-adjusted p=0·0035 for intracranial volume, p=0·024 for putamen volume), smoking status (p=0·024), and educational attainment (p=0·038). Mendelian randomisation between cognitive performance and Parkinson's disease risk showed a robust association (p=8·00 × 10−7). Interpretation These data provide the most comprehensive survey of genetic risk within Parkinson's disease to date, to the best of our knowledge, by revealing many additional Parkinson's disease risk loci, providing a biological context for these risk factors, and showing that a considerable genetic component of this disease remains unidentified. These associations derived from European ancestry datasets will need to be followed-up with more diverse data. Funding The National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health (USA), The Michael J Fox Foundation, and The Parkinson's Foundation (see appendix for full list of funding sources)

Identification of candidate Parkinson disease genes by integrating genome-wide association study, expression, and epigenetic data sets

Importance Substantial genome-wide association study (GWAS) work in Parkinson disease (PD) has led to the discovery of an increasing number of loci shown reliably to be associated with increased risk of disease. Improved understanding of the underlying genes and mechanisms at these loci will be key to understanding the pathogenesis of PD. Objective To investigate what genes and genomic processes underlie the risk of sporadic PD. Design and Setting This genetic association study used the bioinformatic tools Coloc and transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS) to integrate PD case-control GWAS data published in 2017 with expression data (from Braineac, the Genotype-Tissue Expression [GTEx], and CommonMind) and methylation data (derived from UK Parkinson brain samples) to uncover putative gene expression and splicing mechanisms associated with PD GWAS signals. Candidate genes were further characterized using cell-type specificity, weighted gene coexpression networks, and weighted protein-protein interaction networks. Main Outcomes and Measures It was hypothesized a priori that some genes underlying PD loci would alter PD risk through changes to expression, splicing, or methylation. Candidate genes are presented whose change in expression, splicing, or methylation are associated with risk of PD as well as the functional pathways and cell types in which these genes have an important role. Results Gene-level analysis of expression revealed 5 genes (WDR6 [OMIM 606031], CD38 [OMIM 107270], GPNMB [OMIM 604368], RAB29 [OMIM 603949], and TMEM163 [OMIM 618978]) that replicated using both Coloc and TWAS analyses in both the GTEx and Braineac expression data sets. A further 6 genes (ZRANB3 [OMIM 615655], PCGF3 [OMIM 617543], NEK1 [OMIM 604588], NUPL2 [NCBI 11097], GALC [OMIM 606890], and CTSB [OMIM 116810]) showed evidence of disease-associated splicing effects. Cell-type specificity analysis revealed that gene expression was overall more prevalent in glial cell types compared with neurons. The weighted gene coexpression performed on the GTEx data set showed that NUPL2 is a key gene in 3 modules implicated in catabolic processes associated with protein ubiquitination and in the ubiquitin-dependent protein catabolic process in the nucleus accumbens, caudate, and putamen. TMEM163 and ZRANB3 were both important in modules in the frontal cortex and caudate, respectively, indicating regulation of signaling and cell communication. Protein interactor analysis and simulations using random networks demonstrated that the candidate genes interact significantly more with known mendelian PD and parkinsonism proteins than would be expected by chance. Conclusions and Relevance Together, these results suggest that several candidate genes and pathways are associated with the findings observed in PD GWAS studies

Translational implications of endothelial cell dysfunction in association with chronic allograft rejection

International audienceAdvances in therapeutics have dramatically improved short-term graft survival, while the incidence of chronic rejection has not changed in the past 20 years. New insights into mechanism are sorely needed at this time and it is hoped that the development of predictive biomarkers will pave the way for the emergence of preventative therapeutics. In this review, we discuss a paradigm suggesting that sequential changes within graft endothelial cells (EC) lead to an intragraft microenvironment that favors the development of chronic rejection. Key changes include EC injury, activation and uncontrolled leukocyte-induced angiogenesis. We propose that all of these changes may lead to abnormal blood flow patterns, local tissue hypoxia and an associated overexpression of HIF-1α-inducible genes including Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor. We also discuss how regulators of mTOR-mediated signaling within EC are of critical importance in microvascular stability and the inhibition of chronic rejection. Finally, we discuss recent findings indicating that miRNAs regulate EC stability, and their potential as novel noninvasive biomarkers of allograft rejection. Altogether, this review provides insights into molecular events, genes and signals that promote chronic rejection and their potential as biomarkers for the future development of interruption therapeutics

The Genetic Architecture of Parkinson Disease in Spain: Characterizing Population-Specific Risk, Differential Haplotype Structures, and Providing Etiologic Insight

Background: The Iberian Peninsula stands out as having variable levels of population admixture and isolation, making Spain an interesting setting for studying the genetic architecture of neurodegenerative diseases. Objectives: To perform the largest PD genome-wide association study restricted to a single country. Methods: We performed a GWAS for both risk of PD and age at onset in 7,849 Spanish individuals. Further analyses included population-specific risk haplotype assessments, polygenic risk scoring through machine learning, Mendelian randomization of expression, and methylation data to gain insight into disease-associated loci, heritability estimates, genetic correlations, and burden analyses. Results: We identified a novel population-specific genome-wide association study signal at PARK2 associated with age at onset, which was likely dependent on the c.155delA mutation. We replicated four genome-wide independent signals associated with PD risk, including SNCA, LRRK2, KANSL1/MAPT, and HLA-DQB1. A significant trend for smaller risk haplotypes at known loci was found compared to similar studies of non-Spanish origin. Seventeen PD-related genes showed functional consequence by two-sample Mendelian randomization in expression and methylation data sets. Long runs of homozygosity at 28 known genes/loci were found to be enriched in cases versus controls. Conclusions: Our data demonstrate the utility of the Spanish risk haplotype substructure for future fine-mapping efforts, showing how leveraging unique and diverse population histories can benefit genetic studies of complex diseases. The present study points to PARK2 as a major hallmark of PD etiology in Spain.This research was supported, in part, by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; project numbers: 1ZIA‐NS003154‐03, Z01‐AG000949‐02, and Z01‐ES101986). In addition, this work was supported by the Department of Defense (award W81XWH‐09‐2‐0128), The Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, and the ISCIII Grants PI 15/0878 (Fondos Feder) to V.A. and PI 15/01013 to J,H. This study was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PI14/01823, PI16/01575, PI18/01898, [SAF2006‐10126 (2006‐2009), SAF2010‐22329‐C02‐01 (2010‐2012), and SAF2013‐47939‐R (2013‐2018)]), co‐founded by ISCIII (Subdirección General de Evaluación y Fomento de la Investigación) and by Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), the Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo de la Junta de Andalucía (CVI‐02526, CTS‐7685), the Consejería de Salud y Bienestar Social de la Junta de Andalucía (PI‐0437‐2012, PI‐0471‐2013), the Sociedad Andaluza de Neurología, the Jacques and Gloria Gossweiler Foundation, the Fundación Alicia Koplowitz, and the Fundación Mutua Madrileña. Pilar Gómez‐Garre was supported by the “Miguel Servet” (from ISCIII16 FEDER) and “Nicolás Monardes” (from Andalusian Ministry of Health) programmes. Silvia Jesús Maestre was supported by the “Juan Rodés” programme, and Daniel Macías‐García was supported by the “Río Hortega” programme (both from ISCIII‐FEDER). Cristina Tejera Parrado was supported by VPPI‐US from the Universidad de Sevilla. This research has been conducted using samples from the HUVR‐IBiS Biobank (Andalusian Public Health System Biobank and ISCIII‐Red de Biobancos PT13/0010/0056). This work was also supported by the grant PSI2014‐57643 from the Junta de Andalucía to the CTS‐438 group and a research award from the Andalusian Society of Neurology

The Genetic Architecture of Parkinson Disease in Spain: Characterizing Population‐Specific Risk, Differential Haplotype Structures, and Providing Etiologic Insight

The Iberian Peninsula stands out as having variable levels of population admixture and isolation, making Spain an interesting setting for studying the genetic architecture of neurodegenerative diseases. To perform the largest PD genome-wide association study restricted to a single country. We performed a GWAS for both risk of PD and age at onset in 7,849 Spanish individuals. Further analyses included population-specific risk haplotype assessments, polygenic risk scoring through machine learning, Mendelian randomization of expression, and methylation data to gain insight into disease-associated loci, heritability estimates, genetic correlations, and burden analyses. We identified a novel population-specific genome-wide association study signal at PARK2 associated with age at onset, which was likely dependent on the c.155delA mutation. We replicated four genome-wide independent signals associated with PD risk, including SNCA, LRRK2, KANSL1/MAPT, and HLA-DQB1. A significant trend for smaller risk haplotypes at known loci was found compared to similar studies of non-Spanish origin. Seventeen PD-related genes showed functional consequence by two-sample Mendelian randomization in expression and methylation data sets. Long runs of homozygosity at 28 known genes/loci were found to be enriched in cases versus controls. Our data demonstrate the utility of the Spanish risk haplotype substructure for future fine-mapping efforts, showing how leveraging unique and diverse population histories can benefit genetic studies of complex diseases. The present study points to PARK2 as a major hallmark of PD etiology in Spain. © 2019 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society

The Genetic Architecture of Parkinson Disease in Spain: Characterizing Population-Specific Risk, Differential Haplotype Structures, and Providing Etiologic Insight.

The Iberian Peninsula stands out as having variable levels of population admixture and isolation, making Spain an interesting setting for studying the genetic architecture of neurodegenerative diseases. To perform the largest PD genome-wide association study restricted to a single country. We performed a GWAS for both risk of PD and age at onset in 7,849 Spanish individuals. Further analyses included population-specific risk haplotype assessments, polygenic risk scoring through machine learning, Mendelian randomization of expression, and methylation data to gain insight into disease-associated loci, heritability estimates, genetic correlations, and burden analyses. We identified a novel population-specific genome-wide association study signal at PARK2 associated with age at onset, which was likely dependent on the c.155delA mutation. We replicated four genome-wide independent signals associated with PD risk, including SNCA, LRRK2, KANSL1/MAPT, and HLA-DQB1. A significant trend for smaller risk haplotypes at known loci was found compared to similar studies of non-Spanish origin. Seventeen PD-related genes showed functional consequence by two-sample Mendelian randomization in expression and methylation data sets. Long runs of homozygosity at 28 known genes/loci were found to be enriched in cases versus controls. Our data demonstrate the utility of the Spanish risk haplotype substructure for future fine-mapping efforts, showing how leveraging unique and diverse population histories can benefit genetic studies of complex diseases. The present study points to PARK2 as a major hallmark of PD etiology in Spain. © 2019 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society