Quantifying concordant genetic effects of de novo mutations on multiple disorders

  1. Hanmin Guo
  2. Lin Hou
  3. Yu Shi
  4. Sheng Chih Jin
  5. Xue Zeng
  6. Boyang Li
  7. Richard Lifton
  8. Martina Brueckner
  9. Hongyu Zhao  Is a corresponding author
  10. Qiongshi Lu  Is a corresponding author
  1. Tsinghua University, China
  2. Yale University, United States
  3. Washington University in St. Louis, United States
  4. Rockefeller University, United States
  5. University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States

Abstract

Exome sequencing on tens of thousands of parent-proband trios has identified numerous deleterious de novo mutations (DNMs) and implicated risk genes for many disorders. Recent studies have suggested shared genes and pathways are enriched for DNMs across multiple disorders. However, existing analytic strategies only focus on genes that reach statistical significance for multiple disorders and require large trio samples in each study. As a result, these methods are not able to characterize the full landscape of genetic sharing due to polygenicity and incomplete penetrance. In this work, we introduce EncoreDNM, a novel statistical framework to quantify shared genetic effects between two disorders characterized by concordant enrichment of DNMs in the exome. EncoreDNM makes use of exome-wide, summary-level DNM data, including genes that do not reach statistical significance in single-disorder analysis, to evaluate the overall and annotation-partitioned genetic sharing between two disorders. Applying EncoreDNM to DNM data of nine disorders, we identified abundant pairwise enrichment correlations, especially in genes intolerant to pathogenic mutations and genes highly expressed in fetal tissues. These results suggest that EncoreDNM improves current analytic approaches and may have broad applications in DNM studies.

Data availability

The current manuscript is a computational study, so no data have been generated for this manuscript.

The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Hanmin Guo

    Center for Statistical Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Lin Hou

    Center for Statistical Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Yu Shi

    Yale University, New Haven, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Sheng Chih Jin

    Department of Genetics, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Xue Zeng

    Yale University, New Haven, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Boyang Li

    Yale University, New Haven, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Richard Lifton

    Laboratory of Human Genetics and Genomics, Rockefeller University, New York, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Martina Brueckner

    Yale University, New Haven, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Hongyu Zhao

    Yale University, New Haven, United States
    For correspondence
    Hongyu.Zhao@yale.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Qiongshi Lu

    Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, United States
    For correspondence
    qlu@biostat.wisc.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4514-0969

Funding

National Science Foundation of China (No. 12071243)

  • Lin Hou

Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project (No. 2017SHZDZX01)

  • Lin Hou

Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation

  • Qiongshi Lu

Waisman Center pilot grant program at University of Wisconsin-Madison

  • Qiongshi Lu

National Institutes of Health (No. R03HD100883 and R01GM134005)

  • Hongyu Zhao

National Science Foundation (DMS 1902903)

  • Hongyu Zhao

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2022, Guo 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.

Metrics

  • 975
    views
  • 197
    downloads
  • 4
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Hanmin Guo
  2. Lin Hou
  3. Yu Shi
  4. Sheng Chih Jin
  5. Xue Zeng
  6. Boyang Li
  7. Richard Lifton
  8. Martina Brueckner
  9. Hongyu Zhao
  10. Qiongshi Lu
(2022)
Quantifying concordant genetic effects of de novo mutations on multiple disorders
eLife 11:e75551.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.75551

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.75551

Further reading

    1. Genetics and Genomics
    Shek Man Chim, Kristen Howell ... Regeneron Genetics Center
    Research Article

    Recent studies have revealed a role for zinc in insulin secretion and glucose homeostasis. Randomized placebo-controlled zinc supplementation trials have demonstrated improved glycemic traits in patients with type II diabetes (T2D). Moreover, rare loss-of-function variants in the zinc efflux transporter SLC30A8 reduce T2D risk. Despite this accumulated evidence, a mechanistic understanding of how zinc influences systemic glucose homeostasis and consequently T2D risk remains unclear. To further explore the relationship between zinc and metabolic traits, we searched the exome database of the Regeneron Genetics Center-Geisinger Health System DiscovEHR cohort for genes that regulate zinc levels and associate with changes in metabolic traits. We then explored our main finding using in vitro and in vivo models. We identified rare loss-of-function (LOF) variants (MAF <1%) in Solute Carrier Family 39, Member 5 (SLC39A5) associated with increased circulating zinc (p=4.9 × 10-4). Trans-ancestry meta-analysis across four studies exhibited a nominal association of SLC39A5 LOF variants with decreased T2D risk. To explore the mechanisms underlying these associations, we generated mice lacking Slc39a5. Slc39a5-/- mice display improved liver function and reduced hyperglycemia when challenged with congenital or diet-induced obesity. These improvements result from elevated hepatic zinc levels and concomitant activation of hepatic AMPK and AKT signaling, in part due to zinc-mediated inhibition of hepatic protein phosphatase activity. Furthermore, under conditions of diet-induced non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), Slc39a5-/- mice display significantly attenuated fibrosis and inflammation. Taken together, these results suggest SLC39A5 as a potential therapeutic target for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) due to metabolic derangements including T2D.

    1. Genetics and Genomics
    2. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine
    Amy Tresenrider, Marcus Hooper ... Thomas A Reh
    Research Article

    Retinal degeneration in mammals causes permanent loss of vision, due to an inability to regenerate naturally. Some non-mammalian vertebrates show robust regeneration, via Muller glia (MG). We have recently made significant progress in stimulating adult mouse MG to regenerate functional neurons by transgenic expression of the proneural transcription factor Ascl1. While these results showed that MG can serve as an endogenous source of neuronal replacement, the efficacy of this process is limited. With the goal of improving this in mammals, we designed a small molecule screen using sci-Plex, a method to multiplex up to thousands of single-nucleus RNA-seq conditions into a single experiment. We used this technology to screen a library of 92 compounds, identified, and validated two that promote neurogenesis in vivo. Our results demonstrate that high-throughput single-cell molecular profiling can substantially improve the discovery process for molecules and pathways that can stimulate neural regeneration and further demonstrate the potential for this approach to restore vision in patients with retinal disease.