Integrating Gene Expression with Summary Association Statistics to Identify Genes Associated with 30 Complex Traits.

Am J Hum Genet
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

Although genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified thousands of risk loci for many complex traits and diseases, the causal variants and genes at these loci remain largely unknown. Here, we introduce a method for estimating the local genetic correlation between gene expression and a complex trait and utilize it to estimate the genetic correlation due to predicted expression between pairs of traits. We integrated gene expression measurements from 45 expression panels with summary GWAS data to perform 30 multi-tissue transcriptome-wide association studies (TWASs). We identified 1,196 genes whose expression is associated with these traits; of these, 168 reside more than 0.5 Mb away from any previously reported GWAS significant variant. We then used our approach to find 43 pairs of traits with significant genetic correlation at the level of predicted expression; of these, eight were not found through genetic correlation at the SNP level. Finally, we used bi-directional regression to find evidence that BMI causally influences triglyceride levels and that triglyceride levels causally influence low-density lipoprotein. Together, our results provide insight into the role of gene expression in the susceptibility of complex traits and diseases.

Year of Publication
2017
Journal
Am J Hum Genet
Volume
100
Issue
3
Pages
473-487
Date Published
2017 Mar 02
ISSN
1537-6605
DOI
10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.01.031
PubMed ID
28238358
PubMed Central ID
PMC5339290
Links
Grant list
R37 MH057881 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH075916 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
T32 CA201160 / CA / NCI NIH HHS / United States
P50 MH084053 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH097276 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
P01 AG002219 / AG / NIA NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH093725 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
P50 AG005138 / AG / NIA NIH HHS / United States
R01 GM105857 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
R01 HG009120 / HG / NHGRI NIH HHS / United States
HHSN271201300031C / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
P50 MH066392 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
R01 GM053275 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH085542 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States