Meta-analysis of type 2 Diabetes in African Americans Consortium

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is more prevalent in African Americans than in Europeans. However, little is known about the genetic risk in African Americans despite the recent identification of more than 70 T2D loci primarily by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in individuals of European ancestry. In order to investigate the genetic architecture of T2D in African Americans, the MEta-analysis of type 2 DIabetes in African Americans (MEDIA) Consortium examined 17 GWAS on T2D comprising 8,284 cases and 15,543 controls in African Americans in stage 1 analysis. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) association analysis was conducted in each study under the additive model after adjustment for age, sex, study site, and principal components. Meta-analysis of approximately 2.6 million genotyped and imputed SNPs in all studies was conducted using an inverse variance-weighted fixed effect model. Replications were performed to follow up 21 loci in up to 6,061 cases and 5,483 controls in African Americans, and 8,130 cases and 38,987 controls of European ancestry. We identified three known loci (TCF7L2, HMGA2 and KCNQ1) and two novel loci (HLA-B and INS-IGF2) at genome-wide significance (4.15 × 10(-94)<P<5 × 10(-8), odds ratio (OR)  = 1.09 to 1.36). Fine-mapping revealed that 88 of 158 previously identified T2D or glucose homeostasis loci demonstrated nominal to highly significant association (2.2 × 10(-23) < locus-wide P<0.05). These novel and previously identified loci yielded a sibling relative risk of 1.19, explaining 17.5% of the phenotypic variance of T2D on the liability scale in African Americans. Overall, this study identified two novel susceptibility loci for T2D in African Americans. A substantial number of previously reported loci are transferable to African Americans after accounting for linkage disequilibrium, enabling fine mapping of causal variants in trans-ethnic meta-analysis studies.Peer reviewe

The Influence of Age and Sex on Genetic Associations with Adult Body Size and Shape : A Large-Scale Genome-Wide Interaction Study

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified more than 100 genetic variants contributing to BMI, a measure of body size, or waist-to-hip ratio (adjusted for BMI, WHRadjBMI), a measure of body shape. Body size and shape change as people grow older and these changes differ substantially between men and women. To systematically screen for age-and/or sex-specific effects of genetic variants on BMI and WHRadjBMI, we performed meta-analyses of 114 studies (up to 320,485 individuals of European descent) with genome-wide chip and/or Metabochip data by the Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits (GIANT) Consortium. Each study tested the association of up to similar to 2.8M SNPs with BMI and WHRadjBMI in four strata (men 50y, women 50y) and summary statistics were combined in stratum-specific meta-analyses. We then screened for variants that showed age-specific effects (G x AGE), sex-specific effects (G x SEX) or age-specific effects that differed between men and women (G x AGE x SEX). For BMI, we identified 15 loci (11 previously established for main effects, four novel) that showed significant (FDR= 50y). No sex-dependent effects were identified for BMI. For WHRadjBMI, we identified 44 loci (27 previously established for main effects, 17 novel) with sex-specific effects, of which 28 showed larger effects in women than in men, five showed larger effects in men than in women, and 11 showed opposite effects between sexes. No age-dependent effects were identified for WHRadjBMI. This is the first genome-wide interaction meta-analysis to report convincing evidence of age-dependent genetic effects on BMI. In addition, we confirm the sex-specificity of genetic effects on WHRadjBMI. These results may providefurther insights into the biology that underlies weight change with age or the sexually dimorphism of body shape.Peer reviewe

The repertoire of lymphokine production by T cell subpopulations

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D95125 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Inability of interleukin-12 to modulate T-helper 0 effectors to T-helper 1 effectors: a possible distinct subset of T cells

Interleukin-12 (IL-12) strongly favours the development of T-helper 1 (Th1)-type cells through its ability to induce interferon-γ (IFN-γ) production by natural killer cells and T cells. In the present work we analysed the effects of IL-12 on the synthesis and secretion of IFN-γ and IL-4 by human T-cell clones. Several previously described human T-cell clones exhibiting Th1, Th2 or Th0 phenotypes were used for these analyses. We demonstrated, by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and intracytoplasmic staining, that, in Th0 clones, IL-12 up-regulated the production of both IFN-γ and IL-4 and was unable to modulate these cells to Th1-type. The up-regulation of cytokine gene expression was transcriptionally regulated and was not due to differences in mRNA stability. In Th1 cells, IL-12 up-regulated only IFN-γ and not IL-4. However, in Th2 cells, both IFN-γ and IL-4 were up-regulated by IL-12. This suggests that Th2 cells may be less stable than Th1 cells. We also observed that human Th2 cells expressed the IL-12β2 receptor, in contrast to murine Th2, which lacks this receptor. The observed differences in the effects of IL-12 on the three T-cell subsets may have important ramifications for IL-12-based therapies