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Cardiovascular Genetics: Functional Characterization and Clinical Applications  @ 2013 Annual Conference of American Society of Human Genetics in Boston, 10/22-26, 2013

Reporter: Aviva Lev- Ari, PhD, RN

Sessions and Events 

The 63rd Annual Conference of American Society of Human Genetics in Boston, 10/22-26, 2013

http://www.ashg.org/cgi-bin/2013/ashg13SOE.pl 

PLATFORM ABSTRACTS

http://www.ashg.org/2013meeting/pdf/46025_Platform_bookmark%20for%20Web%20Final%20from%20AGS.pdf

We express a special interest in Session 58

Friday, October 25, 2013 Boston Convention Center 

2:00 PM–4:15 PM

Concurrent Platform (abstract-driven) Session E (54-62)

SESSION 58 – Cardiovascular Genetics: Functional Characterization and Clinical Applications

Room 205, Level 2, Convention Center

Moderators: Dan E. Arking, Johns Hopkins Univ. Sch. of Med.
Myriam Fornage, Univ. of Texas Hlth Sci. Ctr. at Houston

Human Syndromic Atrioventricular Septal Defect

367/2:00 A homozygous mutation in Smoothened, a member of the Sonic hedgehog (SHH)-GLI pathway is involved in human syndromic atrioventricular septal defect. W. S. Kerstjens-Frederikse, Y. Sribudiani, M. E. Baardman, L. M. A. Van Unen, R. Brouwer, M. van den Hout, C. Kockx, W. Van IJcken, A. J. Van Essen, P. A. Van Der Zwaag, G. J. Du Marchie Sarvaas, R. M. F. Berger, F. W. Verheijen, R. M. W. Hofstra.

A homozygous mutation in Smoothened, a member of the Sonic Hedgehog (SHH)-GLI pathway is involved in human syndromic atrioventricular septal defect.

W.S. Kerstjens-Frederikse1, Y. Sribudiani2, M.E. Baardman1, L.M.A. Van Unen2, R. Brouwer2, M. van den Hout2, C. Kockx2, W. Van IJcken2, A.J. Van Essen1, P.A. Van Der Zwaag1, G.J. Du Marchie

Sarvaas3, R.M.F. Berger3, F.W. Verheijen2, R.M.W. Hofstra2.

1) Dept Gen, Univ of Groningen, Univ Med Ctr Groningen, Netherlands;

2) Dept Gen, Erasmus Med Ctr, Rotterdam, Netherlands; 3) Dept Ped Cardiol, Univ of Groningen, Univ Med Ctr Groningen, Netherlands.

Introduction: Atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD) is a common congenital heart disease with a high impact on personal health. It is often accompanied by other congenital anomalies and in many of these syndromic AVSDs, defects in the sonic hedgehog (SHH)-GLI signalling pathway have been detected. SMO codes for the transmembrane protein smoothened (SMO), which is active in cells with a primary cilium and is located on the ciliary membrane. SMO is a key protein in the SHH-GLI signaling cascade.

Methods: Two probands, a twin boy and girl, presented with an AVSD, large fontanel, postaxial polydactyly and skin syndactyly of the second and third toes of both feet. The boy also had hypospadias. The parents were consanguineous and they had one healthy older child. Karyotyping was normal and Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS) was excluded. Exome sequencing was performed and candidate variants were validated by Sanger sequencing.

Results: A novel homozygous missense mutation c.1725C>T (p.R575W) in SMO (7q32.3) was detected. Functional studies in fibroblasts of the patients showed normal expression of SMO protein but an abnormal localization of SMO, outside the cilia. Moreover we show severely reduced downstream GLI1 mRNA expression after stimulation with the SMO agonist purmorphamine. These results, together with the previously described association of SHH signalling defects with AVSD and SLOS, suggest that this SMO mutation is involved in syndromic AVSD in these patients.

Conclusion: We present the first reported smoothened mutation in humans, in two patients with an AVSD and a phenotype resembling Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome

Left Ventricular Noncompaction – Model in Zebrafish

368/2:15 Identification of PRDM16 as a disease gene for left ventricular non-compaction and the efficient generation of a personalized disease model in zebrafish. A.-K. Arndt, S. Schaefer, R. Siebert, S. A. Cook, H.-H. Kramer, S. Klaassen, C. A. MacRae.

 

Identification of PRDM16 as a disease gene for left ventricular noncompaction

and the efficient generation of a personalized disease

model in zebrafish. A.-K. Arndt1,2, S. Schaefer3, R. Siebert4, S.A. Cook5,

H.-H. Kramer2, S. Klaassen6, C.A. MacRae1. 

1) Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA;

2) Department of Congenital Heart Disease and Pediatric Cardiology, University Hospital of Schleswig- Holstein, Kiel, Germany,;

3) Max-Delbruck-Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany; 4) Institute of Human Genetics, University Hospital Schleswig Holstein, Kiel, Germany;

5) National Heart Centre, Singapore;

6) Department of Pediatric Cardiology, Charité, Berlin, Germany.

Using our own data and publically available array comparative genomic hybridization data, we identified the transcription factor PRDM16(PR domain containing 16) as a causal gene for the cardiomyopathy associated with monosomy 1p36, and confirmed its role in individuals with non-syndromic left ventricular noncompaction cardiomyopathy (LVNC) and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). In a cohort of 75 non-syndromic patients with LVNC we detected 3 sporadic mutations, including 1 truncation mutant, 1 frameshift null mutation, and a single missense mutant. In addition, in a series of cardiac biopsies from 131 individuals with DCM, we found 5 individuals with 4 previously unreported non-synonymous variants in the coding region of PRDM16. None of the PRDM16 mutations identified were observed in over 6500 controls.

PRDM16 has not previously been associated with cardiovascular disease. Modeling of PRDM16 haploinsufficiency and a human truncation mutant in zebrafish resulted in impaired cardiomyocyte proliferation with associated physiologic defects in cardiac contractility and cell-cell coupling.

Using a phenotype-driven screening approach in the fish, we have identified 5 compounds that are able to rescue the physiologic defects associated with mutant or haploinsufficient PRDM16. Notably, all of the compounds had the capacity to restore cardiomyocyte proliferation and to prevent apoptosis in the model. Wildtype zebrafish also demonstrated a significant increase in cardiomyocyte numbers after treatment with the compounds suggesting a pro-proliferative effect of the compounds. In addition, the compounds also rescued the contractile and electrical defects observed in these disease models. These findings underline the importance of personalized disease models for specific pathways, to accelerate the exploration of disease biology and the development of innovative therapeutic approaches.

Genetics of Cerebral Small Vessel Disease

369/2:30 Mutation and copy number variation of FOXC1 causes cerebral small vessel disease. C. R. French, S. Seshadri, A. L. Destefano, M. Fornage, D. J. Emery, M. Hofker, J. Fu, A. J. Waskiewicz, O. J. Lehmann.

Mutation and copy number variation of FOXC1 causes cerebral small vessel disease. C.R. French1, S. Seshadri2, A.L Destefano3, M. Fornage4, D.J. Emery5, M. Hofker6, J. Fu6, A.J. Waskiewicz7, O.J. Lehmann1, 8.

1) Ophthalmology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada;

2) Department of Neurology, Boston University, Boston, MA, U. S. A;

3) School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, MA, U. S. A;

4) Institute of Molecular Medicine and School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Sciences

Center, Houston, TX, U.S.A;

5) Department of Radiology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada;

6) Department of Medical Genetics, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands;

7) Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada;

8) Department of Medical Genetics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) represents a major risk factor for stroke and cognitive decline in the elderly. The ability to readily visualize its microangiopathic features by magnetic resonance imaging provides opportunities for using markers of CSVD to identify novel stroke associated pathways. Using targeted genome-wide association analysis we identified CSVD associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) adjacent to the forkhead transcription factor FOXC1, and using eQTL analysis in two independent data sets, demonstrate that such SNP’s are associated with FOXC1 expression levels.

We further demonstrate, using magnetic resonance imaging, that patients with either FOXC1 mutation or copy number variation exhibit CSVD. These findings, present in patients as young as two years of age and observed with missense and nonsense mutations as well as FOXC1-encompassing segmental deletion and duplication, demonstrate FOXC1 dysfunction induces cerebral small vessel pathology. A causative role for FOXC1 in the development and maintenance of cerebral vasculature is supported by the cerebral hemorrhage generated by morpholino-induced suppression of FOXC1 orthologs in a zebrafish model system. Furthermore, in vivo imaging demonstrates profoundly impaired migration of neural crest cells and their subsequent association with nascent vasculature, a process required for the differentiation of perivascular mural cells. In addition, foxc1 inhibition reduces the expression of pdgfra, a gene critically required for vascular stability via its role in mural cell recruitment. Taken together, these data support a requirement for Foxc1 in stabilizing newly formed vasculature via recruitment of neural crest derived mural cells, and define a casual role for FOXC1 in cerebrovascular pathology.

Genetics & Brugada Syndrome

370/2:45 Genetic association of common variants with a rare cardiac disease, the Brugada syndrome, in a multi-centric study. C. Dina, J. Barc, Y. Mizusawa, C. A. Remme, J. B. Gourraud, F. Simonet, P. J. Schwartz, L. Crotti, P. Guicheney, A. Leenhardt, C. Antzelevitch, E. Schulze-Bahr, E. R. Behr, J. Tfelt-Hansen, S. Kaab, H. Watanabe, M. Horie, N. Makita, W. Shimizu, P. Froguel, B. Balkau, M. Gessler, D. Roden, V. M. Christoffels, H. Le Marec, A. A. Wilde, V. Probst, J. J. Schott, R. Redon, C. R. Bezzina.

Genetic association of common variants with a rare cardiac disease,

the Brugada Syndrome, in a multi-centric study. C. Dina1,2, J. Barc3, Y.

Mizusawa3, C.A. Remme3, J.B. Gourraud1,2, F. Simonet1, P.J. Schwartz4,

L. Crotti4, P. Guicheney5, A. Leenhardt6, C. Antzelevitch7, E. Schulze-Bahr8,

E.R. Behr9, J. Tfelt-Hansen10, S. Kaab11, H. Watanabe12, M. Horie13, N.

Makita14, W. Shimizu15, P. Froguel 16, B. Balkau17, M. Gessler18, D.

Roden19, V.M. Christoffels3, H. Le Marec1,2, A.A. Wilde3, V. Probst1,2, J.J.

Schott1,2, R. Redon1,2, C.R. Bezzina3.

1) Thorx Inst, INSERM UMR 1087, CNRS, Nantes, France;

2) CHU Nantes, l’institut du thorax, Nantes, France;

3) Heart Failure Research Center, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands;

4) University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy;

5) InsermUMR956, UPMC, Paris, France;

6) Cardiology Unit, Hôpital Bichat, Assistance Publique- Hôpitaux de Paris, Nantes, France;

7) Department of Experimental Cardiology, Masonic Medical Research Laboratory, Utica, NY, United States;

8) Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, University Hospital, Münster, Germany;

9) Cardiovascular Sciences Research Centre, St George’s University, London, United Kingdom;

10) Laboratory of Molecular Cardiology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark;

11) 1Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, Germany;

12) Department of Cardiovascular Biology and Medicine, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata, Japan;

13) Department of Cardiovascular and Respiratory Medicine, Shiga University of Medical Science, Otsu, Japan;

14) Department of Molecular Physiology, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan;

15) Division of Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Suita, Osaka, Japan;

16) CNRS UMR 8199, Pasteur Institute, Lille, France;

17) Inserm UMR 1018, Centre for research in Epidemiology and Population Health, Villejuif, France;

18) Theodor-Boveri-Institute, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany;

19) Department of Medicine and Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, United States.

The Brugada Syndrome (BrS) is considered as a rare Mendelian disorder with autosomal dominant transmission. BrS is associated with an increased risk of sudden cardiac death and specific electrocardiographic features consisting of ST-segment elevation in the right precordial leads. Loss-of-function mutations in SCN5A, encoding the pore-forming subunit of the cardiac sodium channel (Nav1.5), are identified in ~20% of patients. However, studies in families harbouring mutations in SCN5A have demonstrated low disease penetrance and in some instances absence of the familial SCN5A mutation in some affected members. These observations suggest a more complex inheritance model. To identify common genetic factors modulating disease risk, we conducted a genome-wide association study on 312 individuals with BrS and 1115 ancestry-matched controls. Two genomic regions displayed significant association. Both associations were replicated on two independent case/control sets from Europe (598/855) and Japan (208/1016) and a third locus emerged, all three with extremely significant p-values (1.10-14 down to 1.10-68). To our knowledge, this is the first time that several common variants are associated with a rare disease, with very high effect (Osdds-ratio) ranging from 1.58 to 2.55. While two loci displaying association hits had already been shown to influence ECG parameters in the general population, the third one encompasses a transcription factor which had never been related to cardiac arrhythmia. We showed that this factor regulates Nav1.5 channel expression in hearts of homozygous knockout embryos and influence cardiac conduction velocity in adult heterozygous mice. At last, we found that the cumulative effect of the 3 loci on disease susceptibility was unexpectedly large, indicating that common genetic variation may have a strong impact on predisposition to rare disease.

Mutations, Vasculopathy with Fever and Early Onset Strokes

371/3:00 Loss-of-function mutations in CECR1, encoding adenosine deaminase 2, cause systemic vasculopathy with fever and early onset strokes. Q. Zhou, A. Zavialov, M. Boehm, J. Chae, M. Hershfield, R. Sood, S. Burgess, A. Zavialov, D. Chin, C. Toro, R. Lee, M. Quezado, A. Ombrello, D. Stone, I. Aksentijevich, D. Kastner.

Loss-of-Function Mutations in CECR1, Encoding Adenosine Deaminase

2,Cause Systemic Vasculopathy with Fever and Early Onset

Strokes. Q. Zhou1, A. Zavialov2, M. Boehm3, J. Chae1, M. Hershfield4, R.

Sood5, S. Burgess6, A. Zavialov2, D. Chin1, C. Toro7, R. Lee8, M. Quezado9,

A. Ombrello1, D. Stone1, I. Aksentijevich1, D. Kastner1.

1) Inflammatory Disease Section, NHGRI, Bethesda, USA;

2) Turku Centre for Biotechnology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland;

3) Laboratory of Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine, NHLBI, Bethesda, USA;

4) Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, USA;

5) Zebrafish Core, NHGRI, Bethesda, USA;

6) Developmental Genomics Section, NHGRI, Bethesda, USA;

7) NIH Undiagnosed Diseases Program, NIH, Bethesda, USA;

8) Translational Surgical Pathology Section, NCI, Bethesda, USA;

9) General Surgical Pathology Section, NCI, Bethesda, USA.

We recently observed 5 unrelated patients with fevers, systemic inflammation, livedo reticularis, vasculopathy, and early-onset recurrent ischemic strokes. We performed exome sequencing on affected patients and their unaffected parents. The 5 patients shared 3 missense mutations in CECR1, encoding adenosine deaminase 2 (ADA2), with the genotypes A109D/ Y453C, Y453C/G47A, G47A/H112Q, R169Q/Y453C, and R169Q/28kb genomic deletion encompassing the 5’UTR and first exon of CECR1.

All mutations are either novel or present at low frequency (<0.001) in several large databases, consistent with the recessive inheritance. The Y453C mutation was present in 2/13004 alleles in an NHLBI database. Both alleles are found in 2 affected siblings who suffered from late-onset ischemic stroke, indicating that heterozygous mutations in ADA2 might be associated with susceptibility to adult stroke. Computer modeling based on the crystal structure of the human ADA2 suggests that CECR1 mutations either disrupt protein stability or impair ADA2 enzyme activity. All patients had at least a 10-fold reduction in serum and plasma concentrations of ADA2, and reduced ADA2-specific adenosine deaminase activity. Western blots showed a decrease in protein expression in supernatants of cultured patients’ cells. ADA2 is homologous to ADA1, which is mutated in some patients with SCID.

In contrast to ADA1, ADA2 is expressed predominantly in myeloid cells and is a secreted protein, and its affinity for adenosine is much less than ADA1. Animal models suggest that ADA2 is the prototype for a family of growth factors (ADGFs).Although there is no mouse homolog of CECR1, there are 2 zebrafish homologs, Cecr1a and Cecr1b. Using morpholino technology to knock down the expression of the ADA2 homologs, we observed intracranial hemorrhages in approximately 50% of the zebrafish embryos harboring the knockdown construct, relative to 3% in controls. Immunohistochemical studies of endothelial cells from patients’ skin biopsies demonstrate a diffuse systemic vasculopathy characterized by impaired endothelial integrity, endothelial cellular activation, and a perivascular infiltrate of CD8 T-cells and CD163-positive macrophages. ADA2 is not expressed in the endothelial cells. Our data suggest that ADA2 may be necessary for vascular integrity in the developing zebrafish as an endothelial cell-extrinsic growth factor, and that the near absence of functional ADA2 in patients may lead to strokes by a similar mechanism.

Genetics of Atherosclerotic Plaque in Patients with Chronic Coronary Artery Disease

372/3:15 Genetic influence on LpPLA2 activity at baseline as evaluated in the exome chip-enriched GWAS study among ~13600 patients with chronic coronary artery disease in the STABILITY (STabilisation of Atherosclerotic plaque By Initiation of darapLadIb TherapY) trial. L. Warren, L. Li, D. Fraser, J. Aponte, A. Yeo, R. Davies, C. Macphee, L. Hegg, L. Tarka, C. Held, R. Stewart, L. Wallentin, H. White, M. Nelson, D. Waterworth.

Genetic influence on LpPLA2 activity at baseline as evaluated in the exome chip-enrichedGWASstudy among ~13600 patients with chronic coronary artery disease in the STABILITY (STabilisation of Atherosclerotic plaque By Initiation of darapLadIb TherapY) trial.

L. Warren1, L. Li1, D. Fraser1, J. Aponte1, A. Yeo2, R. Davies3, C. Macphee3, L. Hegg3,

L. Tarka3, C. Held4, R. Stewart5, L. Wallentin4, H. White5, M. Nelson1, D.

Waterworth3.

1) GlaxoSmithKline, Res Triangle Park, NC;

2) GlaxoSmithKline, Stevenage, UK;

3) GlaxoSmithKline, Upper Merion, Pennsylvania, USA;

4) Uppsala Clinical Research Center, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden;

5) 5Green Lane Cardiovascular Service, Auckland Cty Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand.

STABILITY is an ongoing phase III cardiovascular outcomes study that compares the effects of darapladib enteric coated (EC) tablets, 160 mg versus placebo, when added to the standard of care, on the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in subjects with chronic coronary heart disease (CHD). Blood samples for determination of the LpPLA2 activity level in plasma and for extraction of DNA was obtained at randomization. To identify genetic variants that may predict response to darapladib, we genotyped ~900K common and low frequency coding variations using Illumina OmniExpress GWAS plus exome chip in advance of study completion. Among the 15828 Intent-to-Treat recruited subjects, 13674 (86%) provided informed consent for genetic analysis. Our pharmacogenetic (PGx) analysis group is comprised of subjects from 39 countries on five continents, including 10139 Whites of European heritage, 1682 Asians of East Asian or Japanese heritage, 414 Asians of Central/South Asian heritage, 268 Blacks, 1027 Hispanics and 144 others. Here we report association analysis of baseline levels of LpPLA2 to support future PGx analysis of drug response post trial completion. Among the 911375 variants genotyped, 213540 (23%) were rare (MAF < 0.5%).

Our analyses were focused on the drug target, LpPLA2 enzyme activity measured at baseline. GWAS analysis of LpPLA2 activity adjusting for age, gender and top 20 principle component scores identified 58 variants surpassing GWAS-significant threshold (5e-08).

Genome-wide stepwise regression analyses identified multiple independent associations from PLA2G7, CELSR2, APOB, KIF6, and APOE, reflecting the dependency of LpPLA2 on LDL-cholesterol levels. Most notably, several low frequency and rare coding variants in PLA2G7 were identified to be strongly associated with LpPLA2 activity. They are V279F (MAF=1.0%, P= 1.7e-108), a previously known association, and four novel associations due to I1317N (MAF=0.05%, P=4.9e-8), Q287X (MAF=0.05%, P=1.6e-7), T278M (MAF=0.02%, P=7.6e-5) and L389S (MAF=0.04%, P=4.3e-4).

All these variants had enzyme activity lowering effects and each appeared to be specific to certain ethnicity. Our comprehensive PGx analyses of baseline data has already provided great insight into common and rare coding genetic variants associated with drug target and related traits and this knowledge will be invaluable in facilitating future PGx investigation of darapladib response.

Genetics of influence IL-18 regulation in patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome

373/3:30 Genome-wide association study identifies common and rare genetic variants in caspase-1-related genes that influence IL-18 regulation in patients with acute coronary syndrome. A. Johansson, N. Eriksson, E. Hagström, C. Varenhorst, A. Åkerblom, M. Bertilsson, T. Axelsson, B. J. Barratt, R. C. Becker, A. Himmelmann, S. James, H. A. Katus, G. Steg, R. F. Storey, A. Syvänen, L. Wallentin, A. Siegbahn.

Genome-wide association study identifies common and rare genetic

variants in caspase-1-related genes that influence IL-18 regulation in

patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome. A. Johansson1, 2, N. Eriksson1,

E. Hagström1,3, C. Varenhorst1,3, A. Åkerblom1,3, M. Bertilsson1, T. Axelsson4,

B.J. Barratt5, R.C. Becker6, A. Himmelmann7, S. James1,3, H.A.

Katus8, G. Steg9, R.F. Storey10, A. Syvänen4, L. Wallentin1,3, A. Siegbahn1,11.

1) Uppsala Clinical Research Center, Uppsala University, Sweden;

2) Department of Immunoloy, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, Sweden;

3) Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiology, Uppsala University, Sweden;

4) Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Medicine, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Sweden;

5) AstraZeneca R&D, Alderley Park, Cheshire, UK;

6) Duke Clinical Research Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA;

7) AstraZeneca Research and Development, Mölndal, Sweden;

8) Medizinishe Klinik, Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany;

9) INSERM-Unité 698, Paris, France; Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Hôpital Bichat, Paris, France; Université Paris-Diderot, Sorbonne-Paris Cité, Paris, France;

10) Department of Cardiovascular Science, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK;

11) Department of Medical Sciences, Clinical Chemistry, Uppsala University, Sweden.

 

Interleukin 18 (IL-18) levels are increased in patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and correlated with myocardial injury. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify genetic determinants of IL-18 levels in patients with ACS. In the PLATelet inhibition and patient Outcomes (PLATO) trial, enrolling a broad selection of ACS patients, baseline plasma IL-18 levels were measured in 16633 patients. Of these, 9340 were successfully genotyped using Illumina HumanOmni2.5 or HumanOmniExpressExome BeadChip and SNPs imputed using 1000 Genomes Phase I integrated variant set. Seven independent associations, in five chromosomal regions, were identified. The first region, with two independent (r2 = 0.11) association signals (rs34649619, p = 1.17*10−50 and rs360718, p = 2.03*10−12), is located within IL18. Both top SNPs are located in predicted promoter regions, and the insertion polymorphism rs34649619 (T/TA) disrupts a transcription factor binding site for FOXI1, FOXD3 and FOXA2. The second region, also represented by two independent (r2 = 0.003) association signals (rs385076, p = 6.99*10−72 and rs149451729, p = 3.79*10−16), is located in NLRC4. While rs385076 overlaps with a regulatory region, rs149451729 is a rare coding variant resulting in an amino acid substitution, predicted to be deleterious. The third region is located upstream of CARD16, CARD17, and CARD18 and one of the top SNPs (rs17103763, p = 6.19*10−9) has previously been associated with expression levels of CARD16. The two remaining chromosomal regions are located within GSFMF/MROH6 (rs2290414, p = 5.66*10−17) and RAD17 (rs17229943, p = 5.00*10−12).

While the latter genes have not been associated with IL-18 production previously, others are known to be involved in IL-18 release. NLRC4 is an inflammasome that activates the inflammatory cascade in the presence of bacterial molecules. It recruits and activates procaspase-1, which in its turn is responsible for the maturation of pro-IL-18. CARD16-18, also known as COP1, INCA and ICEBERG, encode caspase inhibitors, known to bind to and prevent procaspase-1 activation. Our results suggest that SNPs in IL18 and caspase-1-associated genes are important for IL-18 production. By combining the identified SNPs in a Mendelian randomization study, the causal effect of IL-18 on clinical endpoints could be further evaluated in a longitudinal study.

Thoracic Aortic Aneurysmal Genes

374/3:45 Prevalence and predictors of pneumothorax in patients with connective tissue disorders enrolled in the GenTAC (National Registry of Genetically Triggered Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms and Cardiovascular Conditions) Registry. J. P. Habashi, G. L. Oswald, K. W. Holmes, E. M. Reynolds, S. LeMaire, W. Ravekes, N. B. McDonnell, C. Maslen, R. V. Shohet, R. E. Pyeritz, R. Devereux, D. M. Milewicz, H. C. Dietz, GenTAC Registry Consortium.

Prevalence and Predictors of Pneumothorax in Patients with Connective Tissue Disorders Enrolled in the GenTAC (National Registry of Genetically Triggered Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms and Cardiovascular Conditions) Registry.

J.P. Habashi1, G.L. Oswald2, K.W. Holmes1,5, E.M.

Reynolds10, S. LeMaire3, W. Ravekes1, N.B. McDonnell4, C. Maslen5, R.V.

Shohet6, R.E. Pyeritz7, R. Devereux8, D.M. Milewicz9, H.C. Dietz2, GenTAC

Registry Consortium.

1) Dept Pediatric Cardiology, Johns Hopkins Univ, Baltimore, MD;

2) Dept. Medical Genetics, Johns Hopkins Univ, Baltimore, MD;

3) Baylor College of Medicine, Houston TX;

4) NIA at Harbor Hospital, Baltimore, MD;

5) Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR;

6) Queen’s Medical Center, Honolulu, HI;

7) The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; 8) Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University, New York NY;

9) University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Houston, TX;

10) University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD.

Spontaneous pneumothorax—described as escape of air into the pleural space surrounding the lung in the absence of traumatic injury—is a rare occurrence in the general population (0.1-0.5%), however is well recognized in Marfan syndrome (MFS)(4-5%). Associations between pneumothorax and other connective tissue disorders (CTDs) are less well recognized. We sought to examine potential associations of

  • pneumothorax with MFS,
  • vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (vEDS) and other CTDs.

 

Phenotypic data were analyzed on all GenTAC patients with confirmed diagnoses of

  • MFS,
  • vEDS,
  • Loeys-Dietz syndrome (LDS),
  • bicuspid aortic valve with aortic enlargement (BAVe) or
  • familial thoracic aortic aneurysm and dissection (FTAAD)

to assess the prevalence of pneumothorax and associated features (1918 total pts).

Of 695 patients with Ghent criteria-confirmed MFS, 73 had experienced a spontaneous pneumothorax (prevalence 10.5%), higher than reported in the literature. The frequency of pneumothorax in vEDS patients (16/107, 15%) was similar to the frequency in the MFS group. The prevalences of pneumothorax in LDS (4/73, 5.5%), FTAAD (13/237, 5.5%), and BAVe (19/ 806, 2.4%) were significantly less than that for MFS and vEDS (p<0.001), yet greater than reported for the general population. In MFS patients with a pneumothorax, there was a three-fold increase in reported skeletal features of pectus carinatum, pectus excavatum, scoliosis and/or kyphosis compared to those without pneumothorax. Similarly, in vEDS, there was a four-fold increase in pectus carinatum, scoliosis and kyphosis in those patients with a pneumothorax compared to those without pneumothorax. In a subset of patients with self-reported data (n=846), smoking was not associated with increased prevalence of pneumothorax. Gender was not a predictor of pneumothorax in any of the diagnostic categories analyzed despite literature reports of increased prevalence in males. In patients enrolled in the GenTAC registry with a diagnosis of MFS, vEDS, BAVe, FTAAD or LDS, the prevalence of pneumothorax was significantly increased in all CTDs analyzed as compared to the general population. The prevalence of pneumothorax was significantly higher in patients with MFS or vEDS than in the other CTDs.

These data suggest that skeletal features may be a predictor for pneumothorax. Patients presenting with a spontaneous pneumothorax should be evaluated for several potential CTDs; such an evaluation could unmask an undiagnosed aortic aneurysm.

 

375/4:00 Surprising clinical lessons from targeted next-generation sequencing of thoracic aortic aneurysmal genes. B. Loeys, D. Proost, G. Vandeweyer, S. Salemink, M. Kempers, G. Oswald, H. Dietz, G. Mortier, L. Van Laer.

Surprising clinical lessons from targeted next generation sequencing of thoracic aortic aneurysmal genes. B. Loeys1,2, D. Proost1, G. Vandeweyer1, S. Salemink2, M. Kempers2, G. Oswald3, H. Dietz3, G. Mortier1, L. Van Laer1.

1) Center for Medical Genetics, University of Antwerp/ Antwerp University Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium;

2) Department of Genetics, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands;

3) Mc Kusick Nathans Institute for Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Baltimore, USA.

Thoracic aortic aneurysm/dissection (TAA), an important cause of death in the industrialized world, is genetically heterogeneous and at least 14 causative genes have been identified, accounting for both syndromic and non-syndromic forms. The diagnosis is not always straightforward because a considerable clinical overlap exists between patients with mutations in different genes, and mutations in the same gene cause a wide phenotypic variability. Molecular confirmation of the diagnosis is becoming increasingly important for gene-tailored patient management but consecutive, conventional molecular TAA gene screening is expensive and labor-intensive. To shorten the turn-around-time, to increase mutation-uptake and to reduce the overall cost of molecular testing, we developed a TAA gene panel for next generation sequencing (NGS) of 14 TAA genes (ACTA2, COL3A1, EFEMP2, FBN1, FLNA, MYH11, MYLK, NOTCH1, SKI, SLC2A10, SMAD3, TGFB2, TGFBR1 and TGFBR2). We obtained enrichment with Haloplex technology and performed 2×150 bp paired-end runs on a Miseq sequencer in a series of 57 consecutive TAA patients, both syndromic and non-syndromic.

The sensitivity and false positive rate were previously shown to be 100% and 3%, respectively. Applying our NGS approach, we identified a causal mutation in 16 patients (28%). This uptake is really high as on average one molecular study per patient (range 0-6) was performed prior to inclusion in this study. One mutation was found in each of the 6 following genes: ACTA2, COL3A1, TGFBR1, MYLK, SMAD3, SLC2A10 (homozygous); two mutations inNOTCH1and eight in FBN1. An additional 6 variants of unknown significance were identified: 2 in FLNA, 2 in NOTCH1, 1 in FBN1 and 1 heterozygous in EFEMP2. All variants were confirmed by Sanger sequencing.

Remarkably, from the eight FBN1 positive patients, three patients had previously been tested FBN1 negative by certified labs, indicating that the sensitivity of Sanger sequencing is not 100%. Interestingly, in two FBN1 mutation positive patients

  • the clinical diagnosis of Marfan syndrome was unsuspected. Similarly,
  • the clinical diagnosis of vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (COL3A1) had not been made. Finally,
  • the ACTA2 mutation was identified postmortem from paraffin-embedded extracted DNA.

We conclude that our NGS approach for TAA genetic testing overcomes the intrinsic hurdles of Sanger sequencing and becomes a powerful tool in the elaboration of clinical phenotypes assigned to different genes.

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ASHG to Maintain Information of to shut down National Genetics Coalition

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

 

National Genetics Coalition to Shut Down,

July 30, 2013

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics (NCHPEG), an interdisciplinary group of leaders from a range of public and private organizations funded by the National Institutes of Health, will shut down next month due to funding constraints, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute.

The genetics and genomics education information that NCHPEG has compileds and made available via its website will be maintained by the American Society of Human Genetics, ASHG executive VP and former NCHPEG executive director Joseph McInerney said.

NCHPEG launched in 1996 after current NIH Director Francis Collins and Kathy Hudson, current NIH director for science, outreach, and policy, began talking with the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association about the need for educating healthcare providers about genetics and genomics. Those discussions led to the creation of the group, which has been funded by NHGRI, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, the NIH Office of Rare Diseases, and several other government agencies and non-profit foundations.

NCHPEG is slated to close down on Aug. 31. When the coalition began, there were few applications for genomics-related applications in healthcare that doctors encountered.

“A lot has changed since then,” NCHPEG Executive Director Joan Scott said in a statement. “There are many more clinical applications of genomics available and a growing awareness within the healthcare provider community that they need to be thinking about incorporating them into practice. We see more institutions and organizations developing initiatives to bring genomics into the clinic.”

The coalition’s core aim has been to provide genetics and genomics professional education tools through partnerships with specific communities and collaborations.

To that end, it has developed a number of documents, products, and programs to provide core competencies and educational programs in genetics, genomics, and family history for healthcare professionals.

The group has developed special programs aimed at helping physicians recognize increased genetic risk for cancer, and helping nutritionists, physician’s assistants, dentists, nurses, and others understand genetics and genomics.

McInerney said that ASHG will work over the next six months to determine whether the society wants to become more deeply involved in offering educational programs to healthcare providers.

“But we have to be thoughtful. NCHPEG is closing as a direct result of the current funding climate. We have to determine where our funding for education programs would come from if our board decides to take this on,” he explained.

McInerney said that during his time at NCHPEG, the group distributed thousands of publications on genomics education.

“Our premise was that healthcare professionals want to be up-to-date on all areas of medicine. Many of them already felt like the field of genetics and genomics was snowballing and they wanted to be ready,” he said.

SOURCE

http://www.genomeweb.com//node/1259986?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Health%20Genetics%20Program%20to%20Shutter;%20Foundation%20Medicine%20Files%20for%20IPO;%20Intrexon%20Prices%20IPO;%20More%20-%2007/30/2013%2004:05:00%20PM

 

 

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Finding the Genetic Links in Common Disease:  Caveats of Whole Genome Sequencing Studies

Writer and Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

In the November 23, 2012 issue of Science, Jocelyn Kaiser reports (Genetic Influences On Disease Remain Hidden in News and Analysis)[1] on the difficulties that many genomic studies are encountering correlating genetic variants to high risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.  At the recent American Society of Human Genetics annual 2012 meeting, results of several DNA sequencing studies reported difficulties in finding genetic variants and links to high risk type 2 diabetes and heart disease.  These studies were a part of an international effort to determine the multiple genetic events contributing to complex, common diseases like diabetes.  Unlike Mendelian inherited diseases (like ataxia telangiectasia) which are characterized by defects mainly in one gene, finding genetic links to more complex diseases may pose a problem as outlined in the article:

  • Variants may be so rare that massive number of patient’s genome would need to be analyzed
  • For most diseases, individual SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) raise risk modestly
  • Hard to find isolated families (hemophilia) or isolated populations (Ashkenazi Jew)
  • Disease-influencing genes have not been weeded out by natural selection after human population explosion (~5000 years ago) resulted in numerous gene variants
  • What percentage variants account for disease heritability (studies have shown this is as low as 26% for diabetes with the remaining risk determined by environment)

Although many genome-wide-associations studies have found SNPs that have causality to increasing risk diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, most individual SNPs for common diseases raise risk by about only 20-40% and would be useless for predicting an individual’s chance they will develop disease and be a candidate for a personalized therapy approach.  Therefore, for common diseases, investigators are relying on direct exome sequencing and whole-genome sequencing to detect these medium-rare risk variants, rather than relying on genome-wide association studies (which are usually fine for detecting the higher frequency variants associated with common diseases).

Three of the many projects (one for heart risk and two for diabetes risk) are highlighted in the article:

1.  National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Exome Sequencing Project (ESP)[2]: heart, lung, blood

  • Sequenced 6,700 exomes of European or African descent
  • Majority of variants linked to disease too rare (as low as one variant)
  • Groups of variants in the same gene confirmed link between APOC3 and higher risk for early-onset heart attack
  • No other significant gene variants linked with heart disease

2.  T2D-GENES Consortium: diabetes

Sequenced 5,300 exomes of type 2 diabetes patients and controls from five ancestry groups
SNP in PAX4 gene associated with disease in East Asians
No low-frequency variant with large effect though

3.  GoT2D: diabetes

  • After sequencing 2700 patient’s exomes and whole genome no new rare variants above 1.5% frequency with a strong effect on diabetes risk

A nice article by Dr. Sowmiya Moorthie entitled Involvement of rare variants in common disease can be found at the PGH Foundation site http://www.phgfoundation.org/news/5164/ further discusses this conundrum,  and is summarized below:

“Although GWAs have identified many SNPs associated with common disease, they have as yet had little success in identifying the causative genetic variants. Those that have been identified have only a weak effect on disease risk, and therefore only explain a small proportion of the heritable, genetic component of susceptibility to that disease. This has led to the common disease-common variant hypothesis, which predicts that common disease-causing genetic variants exist in all human populations, but each individual variant will necessarily only have a small effect on disease susceptibility (i.e. a low associated relative risk).

An alternative hypothesis is the common disease, many rare variants hypothesis, which postulates that disease is caused by multiple strong-effect variants, each of which is only found in a few individuals. Dickson et al. in a paper in PLoS Biology postulate that these rare variants can be indirectly associated with common variants; they call these synthetic associations and demonstrate how further investigation could help explain findings from GWA studies [Dickson et al. (2010) PLoS Biol. 8(1):e1000294][3].  In simulation experiments, 30% of synthetic associations were caused by the presence of rare causative variants and furthermore, the strength of the association with common variants also increased if the number of rare causative variants increased. “

one_of_many rare variants

Figure from Dr. Moorthie’s article showing the problem of “finding one in many”.

(please   click to enlarge)

Indeed, other examples of such issues concerning gene variant association studies occur with other common diseases such as neurologic diseases and obesity, where it has been difficult to clearly and definitively associate any variant with prediction of risk.

For example, Nuytemans et. al.[4] used exome sequencing to find variants in the vascular protein sorting 3J (VPS35) and eukaryotic transcription initiation factor 4  gamma1 (EIF4G1) genes, tow genes causally linked to Parkinson’s Disease (PD).  Although they identified novel VPS35 variants none of these variants could be correlated to higher risk of PD.   One EIF4G1 variant seemed to be a strong Parkinson’s Disease risk factor however there was “no evidence for an overall contribution of genetic variability in VPS35 or EIF4G1 to PD development”.

These negative results may have relevance as companies such as 23andme (www.23andme.com) claim to be able to test for Parkinson’s predisposition.  To see a description of the LLRK2 mutational analysis which they use to determine risk for the disease please see the following link: https://www.23andme.com/health/Parkinsons-Disease/. This company and other like it have been subjects of posts on this site (Personalized Medicine: Clinical Aspiration of Microarrays)

However there seems to be more luck with strategies focused on analyzing intronic sequence rather than exome sequence. Jocelyn Kaiser’s Science article notes this in a brief interview with Harry Dietz of Johns Hopkins University where he suspects that “much of the missing heritability lies in gene-gene interactions”.  Oliver Harismendy and Kelly Frazer and colleagues’ recent publication in Genome Biology  http://genomebiology.com/content/11/11/R118 support this notion[5].  The authors used targeted resequencing of two endocannabinoid metabolic enzyme genes (fatty-acid-amide hydrolase (FAAH) and monoglyceride lipase (MGLL) in 147 normal weight and 142 extremely obese patients.

These patients were enrolled in the CRESCENDO trial and patients analyzed were of European descent. However, instead of just exome sequencing, the group resequenced exome AND intronic sequence, especially focusing on promoter regions.   They identified 1,448 single nucleotide variants but using a statistical filter (called RareCover which is referred to as a collapsing method) they found 4 variants in the promoters and intronic areas of the FAAH and MGLL genes which correlated to body mass index.  It should be noted that anandamide, a substrate for FAAH, is elevated in obese patients. The authors did note some issues though mentioning that “some other loci, more weakly or inconsistently associated in the original GWASs, were not replicated in our samples, which is not too surprising given the sample size of our cohort is inadequate to replicate modest associations”.

PLEASE WATCH VIDEO on the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Exome Sequencing Project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qr5ahk1HEI

REFERENCES

http://www.phgfoundation.org/news/5164/  PHG Foundation

1.            Kaiser J: Human genetics. Genetic influences on disease remain hidden. Science 2012, 338(6110):1016-1017.

2.            Tennessen JA, Bigham AW, O’Connor TD, Fu W, Kenny EE, Gravel S, McGee S, Do R, Liu X, Jun G et al: Evolution and functional impact of rare coding variation from deep sequencing of human exomes. Science 2012, 337(6090):64-69.

3.            Dickson SP, Wang K, Krantz I, Hakonarson H, Goldstein DB: Rare variants create synthetic genome-wide associations. PLoS biology 2010, 8(1):e1000294.

4.            Nuytemans K, Bademci G, Inchausti V, Dressen A, Kinnamon DD, Mehta A, Wang L, Zuchner S, Beecham GW, Martin ER et al: Whole exome sequencing of rare variants in EIF4G1 and VPS35 in Parkinson disease. Neurology 2013, 80(11):982-989.

5.            Harismendy O, Bansal V, Bhatia G, Nakano M, Scott M, Wang X, Dib C, Turlotte E, Sipe JC, Murray SS et al: Population sequencing of two endocannabinoid metabolic genes identifies rare and common regulatory variants associated with extreme obesity and metabolite level. Genome biology 2010, 11(11):R118.

Other posts on this site related to Genomics include:

Cancer Biology and Genomics for Disease Diagnosis

Diagnosis of Cardiovascular Disease, Treatment and Prevention: Current & Predicted Cost of Care and the Promise of Individualized Medicine Using Clinical Decision Support Systems

Ethical Concerns in Personalized Medicine: BRCA1/2 Testing in Minors and Communication of Breast Cancer Risk

Genomics & Genetics of Cardiovascular Disease Diagnoses: A Literature Survey of AHA’s Circulation Cardiovascular Genetics, 3/2010 – 3/2013

Genomics-based cure for diabetes on-the-way

Personalized Medicine: Clinical Aspiration of Microarrays

Late Onset of Alzheimer’s Disease and One-carbon Metabolism

Genetics of Disease: More Complex is How to Creating New Drugs

Genetics of Conduction Disease: Atrioventricular (AV) Conduction Disease (block): Gene Mutations – Transcription, Excitability, and Energy Homeostasis

Centers of Excellence in Genomic Sciences (CEGS): NHGRI to Fund New CEGS on the Brain: Mental Disorders and the Nervous System

Cancer Genomic Precision Therapy: Digitized Tumor’s Genome (WGSA) Compared with Genome-native Germ Line: Flash-frozen specimen and Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded Specimen Needed

Mitochondrial Metabolism and Cardiac Function

Pancreatic Cancer: Genetics, Genomics and Immunotherapy

Issues in Personalized Medicine in Cancer: Intratumor Heterogeneity and Branched Evolution Revealed by Multiregion Sequencing

Quantum Biology And Computational Medicine

Personalized Cardiovascular Genetic Medicine at Partners HealthCare and Harvard Medical School

Centers of Excellence in Genomic Sciences (CEGS): NHGRI to Fund New CEGS on the Brain: Mental Disorders and the Nervous System

LEADERS in Genome Sequencing of Genetic Mutations for Therapeutic Drug Selection in Cancer Personalized Treatment: Part 2

Consumer Market for Personal DNA Sequencing: Part 4

Personalized Medicine: An Institute Profile – Coriell Institute for Medical Research: Part 3

Whole-Genome Sequencing Data will be Stored in Coriell’s Spin off For-Profit Entity

 

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Genomics in Medicine – Tomorrow’s Promise

Reporter: Larry H Bernstein, MD, FCAP

Genomics in Medicine: Today’s Issues, Tomorrow’s Promise

KM Beima-Sofie, EH Dorfman, JM Kocarnik, MY Laurino
Feb 13, 2013 Medscape Genomic Medicine

What do you think about these issues before reading this piece?

The Broader Implications of Genetic Sciences
The 62nd annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG), which was held in San Francisco, California, in November 2012, featured a diverse array of research in basic, clinical, and population science contributed by human geneticists across the globe.
Genetic Sequencing Moves Beyond the Laboratory
Several presentations at the meeting focused on the lessons learned from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Exome Sequencing Project. The goal of the project was to
  • develop and validate a cost-effective and high-throughput sequencing technology
  • capable of analyzing the DNA sequence in the exome, which
  • consists of all protein-coding regions in the human genome.
At previous ASHG meetings, presentations and discussions largely focused on
  • the development of sequencing technology and on applications of this technology for research.
Now that sequencing is an increasing reality, this year’s conference featured presentations on
  • what to do with the resulting information, in both research and clinical settings.
Issues discussed include the challenges of
  • interpreting sequence data,
  • determining which results should be returned to various parties, and
  • the potential impacts of different testing techniques.
Results from the NHLBI Exome Sequencing Project and other projects are fueling the discussion on
legal issues surrounding gene patenting, a hotly debated topic that is currently under consideration by the US Supreme Court. During a plenary session on gene discovery and patent law,
Of particular focus was the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against Myriad Genetics,
  • contesting the company’s patent of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.
At present, Myriad has exclusive rights to offer clinical genetic testing for these genes; one of the main arguments of the lawsuit is
  • that gene patents hinder the pursuit of confirmatory tests and limit the testing options available to women.

DNAPrint Genomics

DNAPrint Genomics (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Exome sequencing workflow: Part 2. Ta...

English: Exome sequencing workflow: Part 2. Target exons are enriched, eluted and then amplified by ligation-mediated PCR. Amplified target DNA is then ready for high-throughput sequencing. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cost per Megabase of DNA Sequence (Why biologi...

Cost per Megabase of DNA Sequence (Why biologists panic about compute) (Photo credit: dullhunk)

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Reporters: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN and Pnina G. Abir-Am, PhD

Putting Genome Interpretation to the Test

01/30/2013
Ashley Yeager
How well do methods for interpreting genome variation work? Ashley Yeager takes a look at a community experiment that is trying to assess just how useful genome interpretation tools in real-world situations.

At the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) conference in November 2012 in San Francisco, CA, Steven Brenner, a computational geneticist from the University of California, Berkley, stood up in front of an audience and argued that it was unlikely that a single genome interpretation tool could identify variants for an array of illnesses or phenotypic traits (1). Instead, interpretation methods would likely need to be gene-specific or tailored for precise applications.

The predictors, assessors, and observers who participated in CAGI 2011, which was held in San Francisco, CA. Source: CAGI

This figure shows the ROC curves for the prediction of patients with Crohn’s disease against the result of 1,000 random predictions, which are shown in gray. Source: CAGI

Steven Brenner helped develop CAGI to determine how well genome interpretation tools could translate to the clinic. Source: UC Berkeley

John Moult, one of the organizers of CAGI, says the challenges are giving scientists a better sense of the genome interpretation tools that currently exist. Source: University of Maryland

Brenner came to that conclusion after looking over the results of the Critical Assessment of Genome Interpretation (CAGI), a community experiment, now in its third year, challenges researchers to computationally predict the phenotypes of genetic variants. The teams then compare their results with unpublished experimental data, showing researchers and clinicians which tools can most accurately interpret large amounts of genomic sequence variation data and which ones might be reliable enough to use in the clinic. The results from the first two rounds of challenges have been clear for Brenner: most genomic interpretation tools are not reliable enough for the clinic yet.

After his talk at ASHG, several clinicians came up to him and expressed their concerns. Many had been using genome interpretation tools more generally, possibly making their conclusions less reliable. “General methods are limited in how well they will perform, which is not what people assumed before,” he says. “What that reaction showed me was that CAGI has a broad set of people that derive value from the experiment’s findings.”

Increasing Confidence

Brenner and John Moult, a computational biologist at the University of Maryland in Rockville, MD, organized the first CAGI experiment in 2010. It was a pilot project to get a better sense of the tools researchers in the community were using to study human genome variation and the phenotypic predictions coming from them. “Coming into CAGI, we had no understanding of how well methods for interpreting genome variation worked,” Brenner says. “Now, we’re starting to get a hint of what the big picture is.”

The goal was to provide a better sense of the correct level of confidence scientists and clinicians should have in the methods to predict the phenotype of sequence variants that are out there right now. “There’s a lot of uncertainty about how these methods work on real problems and so the challenges address the question of how can we test them in real-world situations,” Moult says.

In the beginning, Brenner and Moult had little idea of what to expect. The first year of the experiment was supposed to be very small, a pilot to see who would participate and what tools actually existed. In the end, the 2010 challenges drew more than 100 prediction submissions from eight countries, exceeding the organizers’ expectations.

Forty of the participants traveled to Berkeley in December 2010 to review the results. The top prize was awarded to Yana Bromberg, a bioinformatician at Rutgers University in New Jersey, for her work on interpretation software called screening for non-acceptable polymorphisms, or SNAP for short, which evaluates the effects of single amino acid substitutions on protein function (2). It was the first time Moult and Brenner had heard of SNAP.

In 2011, teams worked on 11 challenges, resulting in 117 predictions from 21 groups representing 18 countries. The challenges expanded, including exercises on exome variation and breast cancer gene variation. Again, SNAP was often one of the best interpretation tools, ranking high on several of the challenges.

One of the challenges in the second year of the experiment asked variation predictors to analyze exome sequence data from 42 Crohn’s disease patients and 6 healthy individuals. Researchers didn’t know how many of the exomes had variations associated with the disease, but many of the tools predicted the disease in patients significantly better than random. The best performing teams used an unexpected approach, looking at rare variants on a large panel of genes (1).

“The Crohn’s results were so great, we wonder if they were an artifact,” Brenner says, explaining that the CAGI organizers have included the challenge again in this year’s experiment to verify the results. If the results hold, “it could be a huge breakthrough there in interpreting genetic variation under certain circumstances,” he says.

The first year results were significant in a statistical sense, but the second year, Brenner says, “really gave us a baseline for better understanding personal genome variations and also started to show which types of interpretation methods might be best for specific applications.”

Nowhere Near

The next step would be to explain why the methods, such as SNAP, are so successful. But that requires more funding. Right now, the experiment has no direct funding, but the CAGI organizing committee does have a grant proposal to run the experiment awaiting review. The National Institutes of Health typically funds the year-end meeting where challenge participants present their results. “We’re doing this on a shoe string,” Moult says. Despite the financial pressure, Brenner and Moult feel that they have invested too much time to give up on the CAGI experiments.

The 2012 challenge deadline is March 2013, with the meeting to present the results slated for July. The delay was largely due to funding issues. But Brenner and Moult hope that the extension will allow more researchers to participate. Overall, Brenner and Moult are excited to see the results.

This year the experiment has 10 challenges, which include a test that focuses on genetic and phenotypic variation in breast cancer as well as the tried-and-true test to predict individuals’ phenotypic traits based on their genomes. The information for the personal genome analysis comes from the Personal Genome Project (PGP). “It acts as a valuable resource for diagnostics evaluations and standardization testing like CAGI,” Harvard molecular geneticist George Church said in an email, adding that the PGP has been providing data to CAGI since its first year.

But this year, there’s a change to the personal genome challenge. For the past two years, participants used the data to predict individual phenotypic traits based on a genome. But phenotypic profiles of all PGP participants are now public. “The availability of the complete profiles makes it impossible to have a valid assessment of individual trait predictions,” Brenner explains.

So instead of predicting the phenotype based on a single genome, in the 2012 challenge, the participants will develop tools that play a “matching game.” The goal will be to match 77 genomes with their corresponding phenotypic profiles, each of which includes 239 traits such as high cholesterol, diabetes, and astigmatism. And to spice things up, the organizers have included 214 phenotypic profiles that do not match any of the 77 genomes.

Ultimately, the CAGI predictors will release the PGP challenge results to those who volunteered their genomes so the individuals can learn more about their genetic susceptibilities for disease. But the reliability of the results is not necessarily high yet, Brenner cautions, so it’s important that individuals, scientists, and clinicians take that into account if someone shows a predicted high risk for cancer or other serious illnesses.

“We are nowhere near having a method for genome interpretation where a doctor could use it and then go and give surgery based on what we are saying,” Moult says. He and Brenner hope CAGI is a first step toward getting there one day.

References

  1. CAGI: The Critical Assessment of Genome Interpretation, a community experiment to evaluate phenotype prediction. (2012). American Society for Human Genetics Conference: Poster.
  1. Bromberg, Y. and B. Rost. 2007. SNAP: predict effect of non-synonymous polymorphisms on function. Nucleic Acids Research 35: 3823-3835.
SOURCE:

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