BIRC6 modifies risk of invasive bacterial infection in Kenyan children
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom
- Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kenya
- Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Thailand
- University of Tartu, Estonia
Abstract
Invasive bacterial disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in African children. Despite being caused by diverse pathogens, children with sepsis are clinically indistinguishable from one another. In spite of this, most genetic susceptibility loci for invasive infection that have been discovered to date are pathogen specific and are not therefore suggestive of a shared genetic architecture of bacterial sepsis. Here we utilise probabilistic diagnostic models to identify children with a high probability of invasive bacterial disease among critically unwell Kenyan children with P. falciparum parasitaemia. We construct a joint dataset including 1,445 bacteraemia cases and 1,143 severe malaria cases, and population controls, among critically unwell Kenyan children that have previously been genotyped for human genetic variation. Using these data we perform a cross-trait genome-wide association study of invasive bacterial infection, weighting cases according to their probability of bacterial disease. In doing so we identify and validate a novel risk locus for invasive infection secondary to multiple bacterial pathogens, that has no apparent effect on malaria risk. The locus identified modifies splicing of BIRC6 in stimulated monocytes, implicating regulation of apoptosis and autophagy in the pathogenesis of sepsis in Kenyan children.
Data availability
Patient level genotype and phenotype data are available via the European Genome-Phenome Archive, with accession codes EGAD00010000950 (WTCCC2: bacteraemia cases and controls) and EGAD00010000904 (MalariaGEN Consortium: severe malaria cases and controls).Full GWAS summary statistics have been deposited with the GWAS Catalog with accession code GCST90094632.Code and source data underlying each figure (and supplementary figure) are available at: https://github.com/jjgilchrist/Kenya_bacteraemia_malaria
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Wellcome Trust (202800)
- Thomas N Williams
Wellcome Trust (098532)
- J Anthony G Scott
National Institute for Health and Care Research
- James Gilchrist
National Institute for Health and Care Research
- Alexander J Mentzer
Wellcome Trust (223253/Z/21/Z)
- James A Watson
Wellcome Trust (209265/Z/17/Z)
- Kathryn Maitland
- Thomas N Williams
Wellcome Trust (HCUZZ0)
- Adrian VS Hill
European Research Council (294557)
- Adrian VS Hill
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: Following explanation of the study, written informed consent was obtained from the parent or guardian of each child included in the study. Ethical approval was obtained from the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) National Scientific Steering and Research Committees (approval numbers; SCC1192 and SCC967) and the Oxford Tropical Research Ethics Committee (OxTREC, approval numbers; 020-06 and 014-01).
Reviewing Editor
- Alexander Young, University of California, Los Angeles, United States
Publication history
- Received: January 31, 2022
- Preprint posted: February 21, 2022 (view preprint)
- Accepted: July 22, 2022
- Accepted Manuscript published: July 22, 2022 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: August 19, 2022 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2022, Gilchrist 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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BIRC6 modifies risk of invasive bacterial infection in Kenyan children
eLife 11:e77461.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.77461
Further reading
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- Evolutionary Biology
- Genetics and Genomics
Female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes impose a severe global public health burden as vectors of multiple viral pathogens. Under optimal environmental conditions, Aedes aegypti females have access to human hosts that provide blood proteins for egg development, conspecific males that provide sperm for fertilization, and freshwater that serves as an egg-laying substrate suitable for offspring survival. As global temperatures rise, Aedes aegypti females are faced with climate challenges like intense droughts and intermittent precipitation, which create unpredictable, suboptimal conditions for egg-laying. Here we show that under drought-like conditions simulated in the laboratory, females retain mature eggs in their ovaries for extended periods, while maintaining the viability of these eggs until they can be laid in freshwater. Using transcriptomic and proteomic profiling of Aedes aegypti ovaries, we identify two previously uncharacterized genes named tweedledee and tweedledum, each encoding a small, secreted protein that both show ovary-enriched, temporally-restricted expression during egg retention. These genes are mosquito-specific, linked within a syntenic locus, and rapidly evolving under positive selection, raising the possibility that they serve an adaptive function. CRISPR-Cas9 deletion of both tweedledee and tweedledum demonstrates that they are specifically required for extended retention of viable eggs. These results highlight an elegant example of taxon-restricted genes at the heart of an important adaptation that equips Aedes aegypti females with 'insurance' to flexibly extend their reproductive schedule without losing reproductive capacity, thus allowing this species to exploit unpredictable habitats in a changing world.
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- Epidemiology and Global Health
- Genetics and Genomics
Background: Whether the positive associations of smoking and alcohol consumption with gastrointestinal diseases are causal is uncertain. We conducted this Mendelian randomization (MR) to comprehensively examine associations of smoking and alcohol consumption with common gastrointestinal diseases.
Methods: Genetic variants associated with smoking initiation and alcohol consumption at the genome-wide significance level were selected as instrumental variables. Genetic associations with 24 gastrointestinal diseases were obtained from the UK Biobank, FinnGen study, and other large consortia. Univariable and multivariable MR analyses were conducted to estimate the overall and independent MR associations after mutual adjustment for genetic liability to smoking and alcohol consumption.
Results: Genetic predisposition to smoking initiation was associated with increased risk of 20 of 24 gastrointestinal diseases, including 7 upper gastrointestinal diseases (gastroesophageal reflux, esophageal cancer, gastric ulcer, duodenal ulcer, acute gastritis, chronic gastritis and gastric cancer), 4 lower gastrointestinal diseases (irritable bowel syndrome, diverticular disease, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis), 8 hepatobiliary and pancreatic diseases (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, alcoholic liver disease, cirrhosis, liver cancer, cholecystitis, cholelithiasis, acute and chronic pancreatitis), and acute appendicitis. Fifteen out of 21 associations persisted after adjusting for genetically-predicted alcohol consumption. Genetically-predicted higher alcohol consumption was associated with increased risk of duodenal cancer, alcoholic liver disease, cirrhosis, and chronic pancreatitis; however, the association for duodenal ulcer did not remain after adjustment for genetic predisposition to smoking initiation.
Conclusion: This study provides MR evidence supporting causal associations of smoking with a broad range of gastrointestinal diseases, whereas alcohol consumption was associated with only a few gastrointestinal diseases.
Funding: The Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of Zhejiang Province; National Natural Science Foundation of China; Key Project of Research and Development Plan of Hunan Province; the Swedish Heart Lung Foundation; the Swedish Research Council; the Swedish Cancer Society.
