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Association of the HOPA12bp allele with a large X-chromosome haplotype and positive symptom schizophrenia.

HOPA is a X-chromosome gene that encodes an essential nuclear receptor co-activator. Previously, we have demonstrated that an exonic polymorphism, termed HOPA(12bp), in the Opa (Opposite Paired) domain of this gene that is critical for neuronal growth and differentiation is associated with a low risk for schizophrenia. But curiously, we have also noted that all HOPA(12bp) probands have the same haplotype immediately surrounding the HOPA(12bp), and other investigators have found evidence of population stratification with the HOPA(12bp) allele. Since deleterious alleles are weeded from the population, and the HOPA(12bp) allele is not rare, these prior findings suggest the possibility that positive selection may be occurring with respect to the HOPA(12bp) allele and that unique phenotypic features may be associated with this allele. To test these hypotheses, we analyzed symptom data collected from schizophrenic probands and conducted haplotyping studies around the HOPA(12bp) polymorphism. Consistent with our hypotheses, genotyping studies of 43 unrelated HOPA(12bp) males and 137 HOPA(wild) males demonstrated that the HOPA(12bp) allele is associated with a large conserved DNA haplotype that extends over several genes known to be critical for human survival. Furthermore, ANOVA analysis of symptom data demonstrated that HOPA(12bp) schizophrenic probands (n = 14) have significantly lower severity of negative symptoms (P < 0.002) and better attention (P < 0.002) than matched controls (n = 30). Taken together, these findings further refine the behavioral endophenotype associated with the HOPA(12bp) allele and suggest that the sequence surrounding HOPA may need to be considered to fully understand the molecular basis of the phenotype associated with the HOPA(12bp) allele.

Adolescent↗

Psychiatric diagnoses and inconsistent results of association studies in behavioral genetics.

Case-control association studies investigating polymorphisms of candidate genes in behavioral disorders have produced a lot of positive and negative findings with few consistent replications. The inconsistent results of association studies in behavioral genetics are usually explained by the fact that significant-appearing relationships may be found as an artifact of genetic differences between the cases and controls because population stratification (or admixture) due to ethnic variation or other confounding factors can generate considerable population differences in marker allele frequencies. The author suggests that a major problem of association studies in psychiatric genetics is that psychiatric diagnoses are not biologically real disease entities: syndromal psychiatric diagnostic categories such as depression or schizophrenia include etiologically, pathologically, and prognostically heterogenous disorders. The author further suggests that extensive clinical research and observations are necessary to classify heterogeneous diagnostic categories into more scientific and more homogenous disease entities.

Case-Control Studies↗

Tests and estimates of allelic association in complex inheritance.

Family-based procedures such as the transmission disequilibrium test (TDT) were motivated by concern that sample-based methods to map disease genes by allelic association are not robust to population stratification, migration, and admixture. Other factors to consider in designing a study of allelic association are specification of gene action in a weakly parametric model, efficiency, diagnostic reliability for hypernormal individuals, interest in linkage and imprinting, and sibship composition. Family-based samples lend themselves to the TDT despite its inefficiency compared with cases and unrelated normal controls. The TDT has an efficiency of 1/2 for parent-offspring pairs and 2/3 for father-mother-child trios. Against cases and hypernormal controls, the efficiency is only 1/6 on the null hypothesis. Although dependent on marker gene frequency and other factors, efficiency for hypernormal controls is always greater than for random controls. Efficiency of the TDT is increased in multiplex families and by inclusion of normal sibs, approaching a case-control design with normal but not hypernormal controls. Isolated cases favor unrelated controls, and only in exceptional populations would avoidance of stratification justify a family-based design to map disease genes by allelic association.

Alleles↗

The expected polygenic risk score (ePRS) framework: an equitable metric for quantifying polygenetic risk via modeling of ancestral makeup.

Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) depend on genetic ancestry due to differences in allele frequencies between ancestral populations. This leads to implementation challenges in diverse populations. We propose a framework to calibrate PRS based on ancestral makeup. We define a metric called "expected PRS" (ePRS), the expected value of a PRS based on one's global or local admixture patterns. We further define the "residual PRS" (rPRS), measuring the deviation of the PRS from the ePRS. Simulation studies confirm that it suffices to adjust for ePRS to obtain nearly unbiased estimates of the PRS-outcome association without further adjusting for PCs. Using the TOPMed dataset, the estimated effect size of the rPRS adjusting for the ePRS is similar to the estimated effect of the PRS adjusting for genetic PCs. Similarly, we applied the ePRS framework to six cardiovascular-related traits in the All of Us dataset, and the results are consistent with those from the TOPMed analysis. The ePRS framework can protect from population stratification in association analysis and provide an equitable strategy to quantify genetic risk across diverse populations.

Journal Article↗

Interaction of TaqI polymorphism at exon 9 of the vitamin D receptor gene with the negative lepromin response may favor the occurrence of leprosy.

Controversies over the vitamin D receptor (VDR) acting as a susceptibility factor in Mycobacterium sp. infections may be the result of incorrect population stratification. The risk of leprosy occurrence conditioned by VDR polymorphism was investigated by stratifying the population of a highly endemic Brazilian region into negative and positive Mitsuda responses. Leprosy patients (102) and a group of healthy nonconsanguineous household contacts (68) were genotyped for the VDR TaqI polymorphism (T/t). TT and Tt genotypes were not considered to be risk factors as their odds ratios (OR) were not different from those presented by the negative Mitsuda response individuals. The combination of the tt genotype and the negative Mitsuda test provided an occurrence rate 13 times higher in leprosy patients than in controls with positive Mitsuda responses. This suggests that there is a higher risk of leprosy development when individuals carry this unfavorable combination, and demonstrates a possible synergistic role of these two variables in leprosy susceptibility via effects on cellular immunity.

Exons↗

[Genetics in eating disorders: extending the boundaries of research].

OBJECTIVE: To review the recent literature relevant to genetic research in eating disorders and to discuss unique issues which are crucial for the development of a genetic research project in eating disorders in Brazil. METHOD: A computer literature review was conducted in the Medline database between 1984 and may 2005 with the search terms "eating disorders", "anorexia nervosa", "bulimia nervosa", "binge eating disorder", "family", "twin" and "molecular genetic" studies. RESULTS: Current research findings suggest a substantial influence of genetic factors on the liability to anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Genetic research with admixed populations should take into consideration sample size, density of genotyping and population stratification. Through admixture mapping it is possible to study the genetic structure of admixed human populations to localize genes that underlie ethnic variation in diseases or traits of interest. CONCLUSIONS: The development of a major collaborative genetics initiative of eating disorders in Brazil and South America would represent a realistic possibility of studying the genetics of eating disorders in the context of inter ethnic groups, and also integrate a new perspective on the biological etiology of eating disorders.

Anorexia Nervosa↗

Importance of allele frequency estimates in epidemiological studies.

This study addresses the issue of appropriate allelic frequency estimates in epidemiological studies. Reasons for imprecise estimate of allele frequency may be population stratification, and lack of power of many published studies to define true allele frequencies in the general population. As an example of the lack of power of epidemiological studies, we plot the frequency of GSTM1 deletion versus sample size for the 79 studies from the GSEC pooled analysis. The estimate of allele frequency derived from small groups of controls deviates more from the true frequency than the estimate derived from larger studies. We discuss the possible consequences of not properly defining allele frequencies in the population. This may reflect on the conduct of association studies, on assessment of the effects of multigenic mechanisms, and on the determination of genetic diversity.

Epidemiologic Studies↗

Meta-analysis of serotonin transporter polymorphisms and affective disorders.

Polymorphisms in the promoter region (5-HTTLPR) of the serotonin transporter and a variable number of tandem repeats polymorphism in the second intron have been widely studied. However, the results of association studies examining unipolar depression (MDD) or bipolar disorder depression (BPD) have been mixed. To precisely ascertain small associations with both polymorphisms, a meta-analysis was performed involving several thousand subjects, using random-effects modeling. For MDD, the effect of the 5-HTTLPR genotype was significant (chi2=6.1, P<0.05), with 21% of MDD subjects and 17% of controls homozygous for the short (S) allele (odds ratio, 1.16). Similar findings were noted in BPD, with a higher frequency of S/S genotypes in affected patients, although the results did not reach statistical significance. Results of transmission disequilibrium tests trended in a similar direction but also did not reach statistical significance. No consistent effect of the variable number of tandem repeats polymorphism was revealed for either MDD or BPD. The results suggest that the S allele, or a neighboring allele in linkage disequilibrium, is recessive for MDD and possibly BPD. Notably, the association is very small. With these small associations, confounding issues such as population stratification require addressing. Significant heterogeneity between studies was also evident, possibly reflecting differences in diagnosis, different control populations, and different ethnic populations. These factors should Influence the interpretation of the association found in this analysis.

Bipolar Disorder↗

Influence of language and ancestry on genetic structure of contiguous populations: a microsatellite based study on populations of Orissa.

BACKGROUND: We have examined genetic diversity at fifteen autosomal microsatellite loci in seven predominant populations of Orissa to decipher whether populations inhabiting the same geographic region can be differentiated on the basis of language or ancestry. The studied populations have diverse historical accounts of their origin, belong to two major ethnic groups and different linguistic families. Caucasoid caste populations are speakers of Indo-European language and comprise Brahmins, Khandayat, Karan and Gope, while the three Australoid tribal populations include two Austric speakers: Juang and Saora and a Dravidian speaking population, Paroja. These divergent groups provide a varied substratum for understanding variation of genetic patterns in a geographical area resulting from differential admixture between migrants groups and aboriginals, and the influence of this admixture on population stratification. RESULTS: The allele distribution pattern showed uniformity in the studied groups with approximately 81% genetic variability within populations. The coefficient of gene differentiation was found to be significantly higher in tribes (0.014) than caste groups (0.004). Genetic variance between the groups was 0.34% in both ethnic and linguistic clusters and statistically significant only in the ethnic apportionment. Although the populations were genetically close (FST = 0.010), the contemporary caste and tribal groups formed distinct clusters in both Principal-Component plot and Neighbor-Joining tree. In the phylogenetic tree, the Orissa Brahmins showed close affinity to populations of North India, while Khandayat and Gope clustered with the tribal groups, suggesting a possibility of their origin from indigenous people. CONCLUSIONS: The extent of genetic differentiation in the contemporary caste and tribal groups of Orissa is highly significant and constitutes two distinct genetic clusters. Based on our observations, we suggest that since genetic distances and coefficient of gene differentiation were fairly small, the studied populations are indeed genetically similar and that the genetic structure of populations in a geographical region is primarily influenced by their ancestry and not by socio-cultural hierarchy or language. The scenario of genetic structure, however, might be different for other regions of the subcontinent where populations have more similar ethnic and linguistic backgrounds and there might be variations in the patterns of genomic and socio-cultural affinities in different geographical regions.

Alleles↗

Accounting for unmeasured population substructure in case-control studies of genetic association using a novel latent-class model.

We propose a novel latent-class approach to detect and account for population stratification in a case-control study of association between a candidate gene and a disease. In our approach, population substructure is detected and accounted for using data on additional loci that are in linkage equilibrium within subpopulations but have alleles that vary in frequency between subpopulations. We have tested our approach using simulated data based on allele frequencies in 12 short tandem repeat (STR) loci in four populations in Argentina.

Alleles↗

Childhood inattention and dysphoria and adult obesity associated with the dopamine D4 receptor gene in overeating women with seasonal affective disorder.

There is significant evidence that altered dopamine activity plays a role in seasonal affective disorder (SAD). The current study examined three separate genetic hypotheses for SAD related to the 7-repeat allele (7R) of the dopamine-4 receptor gene (DRD4), a variant associated with decreased affinity for dopamine. We examined the possible contribution of 7R to the overall expression of SAD, attention deficit disorder (ADD) comorbidity, and body weight regulation. As part of an ongoing genetic study of increased eating behavior and mood in female subjects, 108 women with winter SAD and carbohydrate craving/weight gain were administered the Wender-Utah Rating Scale to measure childhood ADD symptomatology, and a questionnaire to assess maximal lifetime body mass index (BMI). To test for an association between 7R and the categorical diagnosis of SAD, the transmission disequilibrium test (TDT) was used in a subsample of probands providing familial DNA. Standard parametric tests were used to compare childhood ADD symptoms and maximal lifetime BMI across the two genotypic groups defined by the presence or absence of 7R. The TDT found no initial evidence for an association between 7R and the categorical diagnosis of SAD. However, 7R carriers reported significantly greater inattention and dysphoria in childhood (p=0.01 and 0.001, respectively) and a higher maximal lifetime BMI (p=0.007) than did probands without this allele. Furthermore, excluding probands with extreme obesity (maximal BMI >40), a strong correlation was found linking childhood inattentive symptoms and maximal lifetime BMI (r=0.35, p=0.001). In overeating women with SAD, the 7R allele of DRD4 may be associated with a unique developmental trajectory characterized by attentional deficits and dysphoria in childhood and mild to moderate obesity in adulthood. This developmental course may reflect different manifestations of the same underlying vulnerability related to central dopamine dysfunction. Given the possibility of population stratification when studying genotype/phenotype relationships, future use of genomic controls and replication of our findings in other overeating and/or ADD populations are needed to confirm these initial results.

Adult↗

Linkage disequilibrium in the 13q12 region in Finnish late onset Alzheimer's disease patients.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder, for which several disease-associated loci have been located on different chromosomes. We have used a population-based linkage disequilibrium mapping approach in order to find potential AD-associated loci on chromosome 13. To avoid population stratification, late onset AD patients and age-matched controls were carefully chosen from the same geographical area in Eastern Finland, where the population is mainly descended from a small group of original founders. During the initial screening with chromosome 13-specific microsatellite markers, tetranucleotide marker D13S787 was found to be in linkage disequilibrium in the 13q12 region. Screening this region with additional microsatellite markers revealed that marker D13S292 was also significantly associated with AD. Stratification of the AD patients and controls into groups according to apolipoprotein E, sex, and familial/sporadic status indicated that the 13q12 locus was associated with female familial AD patients regardless of ApoE genotype. Based on the physical data from the region 13q12, markers D13S292 and D13S787 were estimated to reside in a 810kb long YAC clone 754h7 together with two infant brain-derived ESTs and the H,K-ATPase alpha-subunit protein gene (ATP1AL1). The localisation of these sequences at the linkage disequilibrium region suggests that they may be candidate genes involved in a sex-specific effect during development of AD.

Age of Onset↗

COMT polymorphisms and anxiety-related personality traits.

High neuroticism and low extraversion are characteristic of anxiety-prone individuals. A functional variant in the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene, the Val158Met ('val/met') polymorphism, has been associated in some prior studies with several phenotypes, including neuroticism. We tested the hypothesis that the val158met polymorphism would be associated with both high neuroticism and low extraversion, making it a plausible candidate locus for anxiety susceptibility. To determine whether val158met is responsible for these effects, we also evaluated the association with haplotypes that included two other SNPs within the COMT gene. We collected a sample of 497 undergraduate college students who were phenotyped on a personality inventory (the NEO-Personality Inventory-Raised (NEO-PI-R)). Subjects were genotyped for three COMT polymorphisms: the well-studied nonsynonymous SNP rs4680 that generates a valine-to-methionine substitution (val158met), rs737865 (near exon #1), and rs165599 (also functional, near the 3'-UTR). Together, these three SNPs define a haplotype that is associated with reduced COMT expression in human brain. Logistic regression analyses were used to examine the effects of individual SNPs on extraversion and neuroticism scores. Score tests for association between these traits (quantitatively and dichotomously considered) and haplotypes were also conducted. We evaluated potential for population stratification artifact by genotyping a set of 36 unlinked highly polymorphic markers previously demonstrated to distinguish sufficiently ancestry of major American populations. Two of the SNPs (rs4680 ('val/met') and rs737865) were significantly associated with (low) extraversion and, less consistently, with (high) neuroticism, with effects confined to women. A significant association between COMT haplotype and (low) extraversion and (high) neuroticism was also observed. Formal testing showed that population structure did not explain the findings. These data suggest that involvement of the COMT locus in susceptibility to anxiety-related traits (ie low extraversion and high neuroticism) is unlikely to be wholly accounted for by the well-studied rs4680 ('val/met') polymorphism. Other functional variants may exist that contribute to this relationship. Possible sex-specific effects remain to be further studied and explained.

Adolescent↗

Population impact of strategies for identifying groups at high risk of type 2 diabetes.

BACKGROUND: To assess the incidence of diabetes among sub-groups of the population defined by the presence of one or more simple risk factors, and to investigate population stratification as a means of identifying groups at high risk of diabetes. METHODS: Data from EPIC-Norfolk (1993-1998), a population-based cohort study of 24,714 men and women aged 40-78 years without self-reported diabetes at baseline, were analyzed. During 12 years of follow-up, 608 new cases of diabetes were recorded. RESULTS: Age (RR 1.03; 95% CI 1.02, 1.04), parental history of diabetes (RR 2.15; 95% CI 1.80, 2.57), BMI (RR 1.76; 95% CI 1.53, 2.02) and physical activity (RR 0.72-0.77 (reference sedentary)) were independently related to risk of diabetes. Sedentary, obese individuals aged over 55 years, with a parental history of diabetes were 18 times more likely to develop diabetes than those in the lowest risk group. CONCLUSION: Sedentary, obese men and women over 55 years with a parental history of diabetes form a readily identifiable group, which could be targeted for screening and primary prevention. Groups such as that defined by physical inactivity alone would be more suitable for population level approaches.

Adult↗

A recent genetic link between Sami and the Volga-Ural region of Russia.

The genetic origin of the Sami is enigmatic and contributions from Continental Europe, Eastern Europe and Asia have been proposed. To address the evolutionary history of northern and southern Swedish Sami, we have studied their mtDNA haplogroup frequencies and complete mtDNA genome sequences. While the majority of mtDNA diversity in the northern Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish Sami is accounted for by haplogroups V and U5b1b1, the southern Swedish Sami have other haplogroups and a frequency distribution similar to that of the Continental European population. Stratification of the southern Sami on the basis of occupation indicates that this is the result of recent admixture with the Swedish population. The divergence time for the Sami haplogroup V sequences is 7600 YBP (years before present), and for U5b1b1, 5500 YBP amongst Sami and 6600 YBP amongst Sami and Finns. This suggests an arrival in the region soon after the retreat of the glacial ice, either by way of Continental Europe and/or the Volga-Ural region. Haplogroup Z is found at low frequency in the Sami and Northern Asian populations but is virtually absent in Europe. Several conserved substitutions group the Sami Z lineages strongly with those from Finland and the Volga-Ural region of Russia, but distinguish them from Northeast Asian representatives. This suggests that some Sami lineages shared a common ancestor with lineages from the Volga-Ural region as recently as 2700 years ago, indicative of a more recent contribution of people from the Volga-Ural region to the Sami population.

Asian People↗

A robust test for assortative mating.

Testing for random mating in human populations is difficult due to confounding factors such as ethnic preference and population stratification. With HLA, the high level of polymorphism is an additional problem since it is rare for couples to share the same haplotype. Focus on an ethnically homogeneous population, where levels of polymorphism at HLA loci are more limited, may provide the best situation in which to detect non-random mating. However, such populations are often genetic isolates where there may be inbreeding to an extent that is difficult to quantify and account for. We have developed a test for random mating at a multiallelic locus that is robust to stratification and inbreeding. This test relies on the availability of genotypic information from the parents of both spouses. The focus of the test is on families where there is allele sharing between the parents of both spouses, so that potential spouses could share an allele. Denoting the shared allele at the locus of interest by A, then under the assumption of random mating, heterozygous parents AX should transmit allele A equally as frequently as allele X to their offspring. When there is positive (negative) assortative mating, A will be transmitted more (less) often than X. The power of the test has been computed in a number of situations. Data on high resolution HLA haplotypes from the Hutterite population were reinvestigated by the proposed test. The test detects significant negative assortative mating when the parental origin of the shared haplotype is taken into account.

Alleles↗

Characterization of a likelihood based method and effects of markers informativeness in evaluation of admixture and population group assignment.

BACKGROUND: Detection and evaluation of population stratification are crucial issues in the conduct of genetic association studies. Statistical approaches useful for understanding these issues have been proposed; these methods rely on information gained from genotyping sets of markers that reflect population ancestry. Before using these methods, a set of markers informative for differentiating population genetic substructure (PGS) is necessary. We have previously evaluated the performance of a Bayesian clustering method implemented in the software STRUCTURE in detecting PGS with a particular informative marker set. In this study, we implemented a likelihood based method (LBM) in evaluating the informativeness of the same selected marker panel, with respect to assessing potential for stratification in samples of European Americans (EAs) and African Americans (AAs), that are known to be admixed. LBM calculates the probability of a set of genotypes based on observations in a reference population with known specific allele frequencies for each marker, assuming Hardy Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) for each marker and linkage equilibrium among markers. RESULTS: In EAs, the assignment accuracy by LBM exceeded 99% using the most efficient marker FY, and reached perfect assignment accuracy using the 10 most efficient markers excluding FY. In AAs, the assignment accuracy reached 96.4% using FY, and >95% when using at least the 9 most efficient markers. The comparison of the observed and reference allele frequencies (which were derived from previous publications and public databases) shows that allele frequencies observed in EAs matched the reference group more accurately than allele frequencies observed in AAs. As a result, the LBM performed better in EAs than AAs, as might be expected given the dependence of LBMs on prior knowledge of allele frequencies. Performance was not dependent on sample size. CONCLUSION: The performance of the LBM depends on the efficiency and number of markers, and depends greatly on how representative the available reference allele frequencies are for those of the population being assigned. This method is of value when the parental population is known and relevant allele frequencies are available.

Black or African American↗

The forensic DNA implications of genetic differentiation between endogamous communities.

In many indigenous minority populations, and among migrants from Asian and African populations now resident in western Europe, North America and Australia, there is a strong tradition of endogamy and a preference for consanguineous unions. These marriage practices can result in F(ST) values greatly in excess of the maximum value (0.01) currently recommended for forensic DNA purposes under guidelines established by the National Research Council (NRC) of the USA. To examine the possible extent of deviation from this accepted norm, three co-resident Pakistani communities were studied using 10 autosomal dinucleotide markers and six tetranucleotide markers on the Y-chromosome. The mean population subdivision coefficient (FST) value was 0.13 for the autosomal loci, and Y-chromosome loci exhibited even stronger differentiation with unique alleles identified in all three communities. The data indicate that even when sub-populations are virtually indistinguishable in terms of anthropology, geography, ethnicity or culture, they may still exhibit major genetic differentiation. Where significant population stratification is known to exist, more detailed genetic databases should be developed for forensic DNA purposes, based on reference data from each of the appropriate sub-populations and not on random or combined samples.

Consanguinity↗