Joint ancestry and association test indicate two distinct pathogenic pathways involved in classical dengue fever and dengue shock syndrome

Ethnic diversity has been long considered as one of the factors explaining why the severe forms of dengue are more prevalent in Southeast Asia than anywhere else. Here we take advantage of the admixed profile of Southeast Asians to perform coupled association-admixture analyses in Thai cohorts. For dengue shock syndrome (DSS), the significant haplotypes are located in genes coding for phospholipase C members (PLCB4 added to previously reported PLCE1), related to inflammation of blood vessels. For dengue fever (DF), we found evidence of significant association with CHST10, AHRR, PPP2R5E and GRIP1 genes, which participate in the xenobiotic metabolism signaling pathway. We conducted functional analyses for PPP2R5E, revealing by immunofluorescence imaging that the coded protein co-localizes with both DENV1 and DENV2 NS5 proteins. Interestingly, only DENV2-NS5 migrated to the nucleus, and a deletion of the predicted top-linking motif in NS5 abolished the nuclear transfer. These observations support the existence of differences between serotypes in their cellular dynamics, which may contribute to differential infection outcome risk. The contribution of the identified genes to the genetic risk render Southeast and Northeast Asian populations more susceptible to both phenotypes, while African populations are best protected against DSS and intermediately protected against DF, and Europeans the best protected against DF but the most susceptible against DSS.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013] for the DENFREE project under Grant Agreement no. 282378. MO has a PhD grant from FCT (The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology - SFRH/BD/95626/2013). I3S is financed by FEDER - Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional funds through the COMPETE 2020 - Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Programme (POCI), Portugal 2020, and by Portuguese funds through FCT/Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação in the framework of the project "Institute for Research and Innovation in Health Sciences" (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007274). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Joint ancestry and association test indicate two distinct pathogenic pathways involved in classical dengue fever and dengue shock syndrome

Ethnic diversity has been long considered as one of the factors explaining why the severe forms of dengue are more prevalent in Southeast Asia than anywhere else. Here we take advantage of the admixed profile of Southeast Asians to perform coupled association-admixture analyses in Thai cohorts. For dengue shock syndrome (DSS), the significant haplotypes are located in genes coding for phospholipase C members (PLCB4 added to previously reported PLCE1), related to inflammation of blood vessels. For dengue fever (DF), we found evidence of significant association with CHST10, AHRR, PPP2R5E and GRIP1 genes, which participate in the xenobiotic metabolism signaling pathway. We conducted functional analyses for PPP2R5E, revealing by immunofluorescence imaging that the coded protein co-localizes with both DENV1 and DENV2 NS5 proteins. Interestingly, only DENV2-NS5 migrated to the nucleus, and a deletion of the predicted top-linking motif in NS5 abolished the nuclear transfer. These observations support the existence of differences between serotypes in their cellular dynamics, which may contribute to differential infection outcome risk. The contribution of the identified genes to the genetic risk render Southeast and Northeast Asian populations more susceptible to both phenotypes, while African populations are best protected against DSS and intermediately protected against DF, and Europeans the best protected against DF but the most susceptible against DSS.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013] for the DENFREE project under Grant Agreement no. 282378. MO has a PhD grant from FCT (The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology - SFRH/BD/95626/2013). I3S is financed by FEDER - Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional funds through the COMPETE 2020 - Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Programme (POCI), Portugal 2020, and by Portuguese funds through FCT/Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação in the framework of the project "Institute for Research and Innovation in Health Sciences" (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007274). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Characterising private and shared signatures of positive selection in 37 Asian populations

The Asian Diversity Project (ADP) assembled 37 cosmopolitan and ethnic minority populations in Asia that have been densely genotyped across over half a million markers to study patterns of genetic diversity and positive natural selection. We performed population structure analyses of the ADP populations and divided these populations into four major groups based on their genographic information. By applying a highly sensitive algorithm haploPS to locate genomic signatures of positive selection, 140 distinct genomic regions exhibiting evidence of positive selection in at least one population were identified. We examined the extent of signal sharing for regions that were selected in multiple populations and observed that populations clustered in a similar fashion to that of how the ancestry clades were phylogenetically defined. In particular, populations predominantly located in South Asia underwent considerably different adaptation as compared with populations from the other geographical regions. Signatures of positive selection present in multiple geographical regions were predicted to be older and have emerged prior to the separation of the populations in the different regions. In contrast, selection signals present in a single population group tended to be of lower frequencies and thus can be attributed to recent evolutionary events.European Journal of Human Genetics advance online publication, 18 January 2017; doi:10.1038/ejhg.2016.181

Characterising private and shared signatures of positive selection in 37 Asian populations

The Asian Diversity Project (ADP) assembled 37 cosmopolitan and ethnic minority populations in Asia that have been densely genotyped across over half a million markers to study patterns of genetic diversity and positive natural selection. We performed population structure analyses of the ADP populations and divided these populations into four major groups based on their genographic information. By applying a highly sensitive algorithm haploPS to locate genomic signatures of positive selection, 140 distinct genomic regions exhibiting evidence of positive selection in at least one population were identified. We examined the extent of signal sharing for regions that were selected in multiple populations and observed that populations clustered in a similar fashion to that of how the ancestry clades were phylogenetically defined. In particular, populations predominantly located in South Asia underwent considerably different adaptation as compared with populations from the other geographical regions. Signatures of positive selection present in multiple geographical regions were predicted to be older and have emerged prior to the separation of the populations in the different regions. In contrast, selection signals present in a single population group tended to be of lower frequencies and thus can be attributed to recent evolutionary events