Diverse ancestry whole-genome sequencing association study identifies TBX5 and PTK7 as susceptibility genes for posterior urethral valves
- University College London, United Kingdom
- University of Manchester, United Kingdom
- University of Bonn, Germany
- University of Zielona Góra, Poland
- University of Marburg, Germany
- University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, United Kingdom
- Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom
Abstract
Posterior urethral valves (PUV) are the commonest cause of end-stage renal disease in children, but the genetic architecture of this rare disorder remains unknown. We performed a sequencing-based genome-wide association study (seqGWAS) in 132 unrelated male PUV cases and 23,727 controls of diverse ancestry, identifying statistically significant associations with common variants at 12q24.21 (P=7.8x10-12; OR 0.4) and rare variants at 6p21.1 (P=2.0x10-8; OR 7.2), that were replicated in an independent European cohort of 395 cases and 4,151 controls. Fine-mapping and functional genomic data mapped these loci to the transcription factor TBX5 and planar cell polarity gene PTK7, respectively, the encoded proteins of which were detected in the developing urinary tract of human embryos. We also observed enrichment of rare structural variation intersecting with candidate cis-regulatory elements, particularly inversions predicted to affect chromatin looping (P=3.1x10-5). These findings represent the first robust genetic associations of PUV, providing novel insights into the underlying biology of this poorly understood disorder and demonstrate how a diverse ancestry seqGWAS can be used for disease locus discovery in a rare disease.
Data availability
All genetic and phenotypic data from the 100,000 Genomes Project and can be accessed by application to Genomics England Ltd (https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/about-gecip/joining-research-community/). Access is free for academic research institutions and universities as well as public and private healthcare organsisations that undertake significant research activity. This dataset includes de-identified, linked information for each participant including genome sequence data, variant call files, phenotype/clinical data and Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) with access gained through a secure Research Environment. No sequencing or identifiable personal data is available for download.The full GWAS summary statistics have been uploaded to the NHGRI-EBI GWAS Catalog prior to publication.Source Data files have been provided for Figures 2, 6, 9 and 10 containing the numerical data used to generate figures.Custom R Code for the case-control ancestry-matching algorithm can be found at https://github.com/APLevine/PCA_Matching.Code for SAIGE and SAIGE-GENE can be found at https://github.com/weizhouUMICH/SAIGE.Code for PAINTOR is available at https://github.com/gkichaev/PAINTOR_V3.0.Functional annotation and MAGMA gene and gene-set analysis were performed using the web-based platform FUMA (https://fuma.ctglab.nl).Custom R code for the structural variant burden analysis has been uploaded as SV Burden Testing - Source Code 1.
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Article and author information
Author details
Melanie Mai Yee Chan
Catalin D Voinescu
Funding
Kidney Research UK (TF_004_20161125)
- Melanie Mai Yee Chan
Medical Research Council (MR/S021329/1)
- Omid Sadeghi-Alavijeh
Medical Research Council (MR/T016809/1)
- Adrian S Woolf
St Peter's Trust for Kidney Bladder and Prostate Research
- Daniel P Gale
National Institute for Health and Care Research
- Adam P Levine
Kidney Research UK (Paed_RP_002_20190925)
- Glenda M Beaman
- William G Newman
- Adrian S Woolf
BONFOR-Gerok Grant
- Alina C Hilger
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: Ethical approval for the 100,000 Genomes Project was granted by the Research Ethics Committee for East of England - Cambridge South (REC Ref 14/EE/1112). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants and/or their guardians.Human embryonic tissues, collected after maternal consent and ethical approval (REC18/NE/0290), were sourced from the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust Human Developmental Biology Resource (https://www.hdbr.org/).
Copyright
© 2022, Chan et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Diverse ancestry whole-genome sequencing association study identifies TBX5 and PTK7 as susceptibility genes for posterior urethral valves
eLife 11:e74777.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74777
Further reading
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Dysfunction of primary cilia leads to genetic disorder, ciliopathies, which shows various malformations in many vital organs such as brain. Multiple tongue deformities including cleft, hamartoma, and ankyloglossia are also seen in ciliopathies, which yield difficulties in fundamental functions such as mastication and vocalization. Here, we found these tongue anomalies in mice with mutation of ciliary protein. Abnormal cranial neural crest-derived cells (CNCC) failed to evoke Hh signal for differentiation of mesoderm-derived cells into myoblasts, which resulted in abnormal differentiation of mesoderm-derived cells into adipocytes. The ectopic adipose subsequently arrested tongue swelling formation. Ankyloglossia was caused by aberrant cell migration due to lack of non-canonical Wnt signaling. In addition to ciliopathies, these tongue anomalies are often observed as non-familial condition in human. We found that these tongue deformities could be reproduced in wild-type mice by simple mechanical manipulations to disturb cellular processes which were disrupted in mutant mice. Our results provide hints for possible future treatment in ciliopathies.
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Cilia defects lead to scoliosis in zebrafish, but the underlying pathogenic mechanisms are poorly understood and may diverge depending on the mutated gene. Here, we dissected the mechanisms of scoliosis onset in a zebrafish mutant for the rpgrip1l gene encoding a ciliary transition zone protein. rpgrip1l mutant fish developed scoliosis with near-total penetrance but asynchronous onset in juveniles. Taking advantage of this asynchrony, we found that curvature onset was preceded by ventricle dilations and was concomitant to the perturbation of Reissner fiber polymerization and to the loss of multiciliated tufts around the subcommissural organ. Rescue experiments showed that Rpgrip1l was exclusively required in foxj1a-expressing cells to prevent axis curvature. Genetic interactions investigations ruled out Urp1/2 levels as a main driver of scoliosis in rpgrip1 mutants. Transcriptomic and proteomic studies identified neuroinflammation associated with increased Annexin levels as a potential mechanism of scoliosis development in rpgrip1l juveniles. Investigating the cell types associated with annexin2 over-expression, we uncovered astrogliosis, arising in glial cells surrounding the diencephalic and rhombencephalic ventricles just before scoliosis onset and increasing with time in severity. Anti-inflammatory drug treatment reduced scoliosis penetrance and severity and this correlated with reduced astrogliosis and macrophage/microglia enrichment around the diencephalic ventricle. Mutation of the cep290 gene encoding another transition zone protein also associated astrogliosis with scoliosis. Thus, we propose astrogliosis induced by perturbed ventricular homeostasis and associated with immune cell activation as a novel pathogenic mechanism of zebrafish scoliosis caused by cilia dysfunction.
