Genetic epidemiology of motor neuron disease-associated variants in the Scottish population

Genetic understanding of motor neuron disease (MND) has evolved greatly in the past 10 years, including the recent identification of association between MND and variants in TBK1 and NEK1. Our aim was to determine the frequency of pathogenic variants in known MND genes and to assess whether variants in TBK1 and NEK1 contribute to the burden of MND in the Scottish population. SOD1, TARDBP, OPTN, TBK1, and NEK1 were sequenced in 441 cases and 400 controls. In addition to 44 cases known to carry a C9orf72 hexanucleotide repeat expansion, we identified 31 cases and 2 controls that carried a loss-of-function or pathogenic variant. Loss-of-function variants were found in TBK1 in 3 cases and no controls and, separately, in NEK1 in 3 cases and no controls. This study provides an accurate description of the genetic epidemiology of MND in Scotland and provides support for the contribution of both TBK1 and NEK1 to MND susceptibility in the Scottish population

Meta-analysis of the heritability of human traits based on fifty years of twin studies

Despite a century of research on complex traits in humans, the relative importance and specific nature of the influences of genes and environment on human traits remain controversial. We report a meta-analysis of twin correlations and reported variance components for 17,804 traits from 2,748 publications including 14,558,903 partly dependent twin pairs, virtually all published twin studies of complex traits. Estimates of heritability cluster strongly within functional domains, and across all traits the reported heritability is 49%. For a majority (69%) of traits, the observed twin correlations are consistent with a simple and parsimonious model where twin resemblance is solely due to additive genetic variation. The data are inconsistent with substantial influences from shared environment or non-additive genetic variation. This study provides the most comprehensive analysis of the causes of individual differences in human traits thus far and will guide future gene-mapping efforts. All the results can be visualized using the MaTCH webtool

The Use and Duration of Preintubation Respiratory Support Is Associated With Increased Mortality in Immunocompromised Children With Acute Respiratory Failure

OBJECTIVESTo determine the association between preintubation respiratory support and outcomes in patients with acute respiratory failure and to determine the impact of immunocompromised (IC) diagnoses on outcomes after adjustment for illness severity. DESIGNRetrospective multicenter cohort study. SETTINGEighty-two centers in the Virtual Pediatric Systems database. PATIENTSChildren 1 month to 17 years old intubated in the PICU who received invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) for greater than or equal to 24 hours. INTERVENTIONSNone. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTSHigh-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) or noninvasive positive-pressure ventilation (NIPPV) or both were used prior to intubation in 1,825 (34%) of 5,348 PICU intubations across 82 centers. When stratified by IC status, 50% of patients had no IC diagnosis, whereas 41% were IC without prior hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) and 9% had prior HCT. Compared with patients intubated without prior support, preintubation exposure to HFNC (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.33; 95% CI, 1.10-1.62) or NIPPV (aOR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.20-1.74) was associated with increased odds of PICU mortality. Within subgroups of IC status, preintubation respiratory support was associated with increased odds of PICU mortality in IC patients (HFNC: aOR, 1.50; 95% CI, 1.11-2.03; NIPPV: aOR, 1.76; 95% CI, 1.31-2.35) and HCT patients (HFNC: aOR, 1.75; 95% CI, 1.07-2.86; NIPPV: aOR, 1.85; 95% CI, 1.12-3.02) compared with IC/HCT patients intubated without prior respiratory support. Preintubation exposure to HFNC/NIPPV was not associated with mortality in patients without an IC diagnosis. Duration of HFNC/NIPPV greater than 6 hours was associated with increased mortality in IC HCT patients (HFNC: aOR, 2.41; 95% CI, 1.05-5.55; NIPPV: aOR, 2.53; 95% CI, 1.04-6.15) and patients compared HCT patients with less than 6-hour HFNC/NIPPV exposure. After adjustment for patient and center characteristics, both preintubation HFNC/NIPPV use (median, 15%; range, 0-63%) and PICU mortality varied by center. CONCLUSIONSIn IC pediatric patients, preintubation exposure to HFNC and/or NIPPV is associated with increased odds of PICU mortality, independent of illness severity. Longer duration of exposure to HFNC/NIPPV prior to IMV is associated with increased mortality in HCT patients

Mutation analysis of CHCHD10 in different neurodegenerative diseases

A recent study by Bannwarth et al. (2014) implicated CHCHD10 as a novel gene for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/frontotemporal lobar degeneration (ALS/FTLD), reporting a p.S59L substitution (c.176C > T; NM_213720.2) in a large French kindred. Affected family members were presented with a complex phenotype that included symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), cerebellar ataxia, Parkinson's disease and a mitochondrial myopathy associated with multiple mitochondrial DNA deletions. So far, seven missense CHCHD10 mutations have been reported in patients with a broad phenotypic range, including ALS/FTLD (p.S59L and p.P34S) (Bannwarth et al., 2014; Chaussenot et al., 2014), ALS (p.R15L and p.G66V) (Johnson et al., 2014; Muller et al., 2014), myopathy (p.R15S and p.G58R) (Ajroud-Driss et al., 2015) and late-onset spinal motor neuronopathy (p.G66V) (Penttila et al., 2015). All of them affect exon 2 (a mutational hotspot of CHCHD10).Fil: Zhang, Ming. University of Toronto; CanadáFil: Xi, Zhengrui. University of Toronto; CanadáFil: Zinman, Lorne. Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre; Estados UnidosFil: Bruni, Amalia C.. Lamezia Terme. Regional Neurogenetic Centre; ItaliaFil: Maletta, Raffaele G.. Lamezia Terme. Regional Neurogenetic Centre; ItaliaFil: Curcio, Sabrina A. M.. Lamezia Terme. Regional Neurogenetic Centre; ItaliaFil: Rainero, Innocenzo. Università di Torino; ItaliaFil: Rubino, Elisa. Università di Torino; ItaliaFil: Pinessi, Lorenzo. Università di Torino; ItaliaFil: Nacmias, Benedetta. Universita Degli Studi Di Firenze; ItaliaFil: Sorbi, Sandro. Universita Degli Studi Di Firenze; ItaliaFil: Galimberti, Daniela. Università degli Studi di Milano; ItaliaFil: Lang, Anthony E.. Toronto Western Hospital University Of Toronto; Canadá. University of Toronto; CanadáFil: Fox, Susan. Toronto Western Hospital University Of Toronto; Canadá. University of Toronto; CanadáFil: Surace, Ezequiel Ignacio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Fundación para la Lucha Contra las Enfermedades Neurológicas de la Infancia. Instituto de Investigaciones Neurológicas "Raúl Carrea"; ArgentinaFil: Ghani, Mahdi. University of Toronto; CanadáFil: Guo, Jing. University of Toronto; CanadáFil: Sato, Christine. University of Toronto; CanadáFil: Moreno, Danielle. University of Toronto; CanadáFil: Liang, Yan. University of Toronto; CanadáFil: Keith, Julia. Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre; CanadáFil: Traynor, Bryan J.. National Institute on Aging. Laboratory of Neurogenetics. Neuromuscular Diseases Research Section; Estados UnidosFil: George-Hyslop, Peter St.. University of Toronto; Canadá. University of Cambridge; Reino UnidoFil: Rogaeva, Ekaterina. University of Toronto; Canad

Genetic influences on schizophrenia and subcortical brain volumes:Large-scale proof of concept

Schizophrenia is a devastating psychiatric illness with high heritability. Brain structure and function differ, on average, between people with schizophrenia and healthy individuals. As common genetic associations are emerging for both schizophrenia and brain imaging phenotypes, we can now use genome-wide data to investigate genetic overlap. Here we integrated results from common variant studies of schizophrenia (33,636 cases, 43,008 controls) and volumes of several (mainly subcortical) brain structures (11,840 subjects). We did not find evidence of genetic overlap between schizophrenia risk and subcortical volume measures either at the level of common variant genetic architecture or for single genetic markers. These results provide a proof of concept (albeit based on a limited set of structural brain measures) and define a roadmap for future studies investigating the genetic covariance between structural or functional brain phenotypes and risk for psychiatric disorders

The value of open-source clinical science in pandemic response: lessons from ISARIC

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