Genome-wide analyses of individual differences in quantitatively assessed reading- and language-related skills in up to 34,000 people.

The use of spoken and written language is a fundamental human capacity. Individual differences in reading- and language-related skills are influenced by genetic variation, with twin-based heritability estimates of 30 to 80% depending on the trait. The genetic architecture is complex, heterogeneous, and multifactorial, but investigations of contributions of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were thus far underpowered. We present a multicohort genome-wide association study (GWAS) of five traits assessed individually using psychometric measures (word reading, nonword reading, spelling, phoneme awareness, and nonword repetition) in samples of 13,633 to 33,959 participants aged 5 to 26 y. We identified genome-wide significant association with word reading (rs11208009, P = 1.098 × 10-8) at a locus that has not been associated with intelligence or educational attainment. All five reading-/language-related traits showed robust SNP heritability, accounting for 13 to 26% of trait variability. Genomic structural equation modeling revealed a shared genetic factor explaining most of the variation in word/nonword reading, spelling, and phoneme awareness, which only partially overlapped with genetic variation contributing to nonword repetition, intelligence, and educational attainment. A multivariate GWAS of word/nonword reading, spelling, and phoneme awareness maximized power for follow-up investigation. Genetic correlation analysis with neuroimaging traits identified an association with the surface area of the banks of the left superior temporal sulcus, a brain region linked to the processing of spoken and written language. Heritability was enriched for genomic elements regulating gene expression in the fetal brain and in chromosomal regions that are depleted of Neanderthal variants. Together, these results provide avenues for deciphering the biological underpinnings of uniquely human traits.

Intronic elements associated with insomnia and restless legs syndrome exhibit cell-type-specific epigenetic features contributing to MEIS1 regulation.

A highly evolutionarily conserved myeloid ecotropic viral integration site 1 (MEIS1) intronic region is strongly associated with restless legs syndrome (RLS) and insomnia. To understand its regulatory function, we dissected the region by analyzing chromatin accessibility, enhancer-promoter contacts, DNA methylation and expression quantitative trait locus (eQTLs) in different human neural cell types and tissues. We observed specific activity with respect to cell type and developmental maturation, indicating a prominent role for distinct highly conserved intronic elements in forebrain inhibitory neuron differentiation. Two elements were hypomethylated in neural cells with higher MEIS1 expression, suggesting a role of enhancer demethylation in gene regulation. MEIS1 eQTLs showed a striking modular chromosomal distribution, with forebrain eQTLs clustering in intron 8/9. Clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats interference targeting of individual elements in this region attenuated MEIS1 expression, revealing a complex regulatory interplay of distinct elements. In summary, we found that MEIS1 regulation is organized in a modular pattern. Disease-associated intronic regulatory elements control MEIS1 expression with cell type and maturation stage specificity, particularly in the inhibitory neuron lineage. The precise spatiotemporal activity of these elements likely contributes to the pathogenesis of insomnia and RLS.

GWAS meta-analysis followed by Mendelian randomization revealed potential control mechanisms for circulating α-Klotho levels.

The protein α-Klotho acts as transmembrane co-receptor for fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) and is a key regulator of phosphate homeostasis. However, α-Klotho also exists in a circulating form, with pleiotropic, but incompletely understood functions and regulation. Therefore, we undertook a genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analysis followed by Mendelian randomization (MR) of circulating α-Klotho levels. Plasma α-Klotho levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in the Ludwigshafen Risk and Cardiovascular Health and Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (mothers) cohorts, followed by a GWAS meta-analysis in 4376 individuals across the two cohorts. Six signals at five loci were associated with circulating α-Klotho levels at genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10-8), namely ABO, KL, FGFR1, and two post-translational modification genes, B4GALNT3 and CHST9. Together, these loci explained >9% of the variation in circulating α-Klotho levels. MR analyses revealed no causal relationships between α-Klotho and renal function, FGF23-dependent factors such as vitamin D and phosphate levels, or bone mineral density. The screening for genetic correlations with other phenotypes followed by targeted MR suggested causal effects of liability of Crohn's disease risk [Inverse variance weighted (IVW) beta = 0.059 (95% confidence interval 0.026, 0.093)] and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels [-0.198 (-0.332, -0.063)] on α-Klotho. Our GWAS findings suggest that two enzymes involved in post-translational modification, B4GALNT3 and CHST9, contribute to genetic influences on α-Klotho levels, presumably by affecting protein turnover and stability. Subsequent evidence from MR analyses on α-Klotho levels suggest regulation by mechanisms besides phosphate-homeostasis and raise the possibility of cross-talk with FGF19- and FGF21-dependent pathways, respectively. Significance statement: α-Klotho as a transmembrane protein is well investigated along the endocrine FGF23-α-Klotho pathway. However, the role of the circulating form of α-Klotho, which is generated by cleavage of transmembrane α-Klotho, remains incompletely understood. Genetic analyses might help to elucidate novel regulatory and functional mechanisms. The identification of genetic factors related to circulating α-Klotho further enables MR to examine causal relationships with other factors. The findings from the first GWAS meta-analysis of circulating α-Klotho levels identified six genome-wide significant signals across five genes. Given the function of two of the genes identified, B4GALNT3 and CHST9, it is tempting to speculate that post-translational modification significantly contributes to genetic influences on α-Klotho levels, presumably by affecting protein turnover and stability.

Epigenetic Association Analyses and Risk Prediction of RLS.

BACKGROUND: As opposed to other neurobehavioral disorders, epigenetic analyses and biomarkers are largely missing in the case of idiopathic restless legs syndrome (RLS). OBJECTIVES: Our aims were to develop a biomarker for RLS based on DNA methylation in blood and to examine DNA methylation in brain tissues for dissecting RLS pathophysiology. METHODS: Methylation of blood DNA from three independent cohorts (n = 2283) and post-mortem brain DNA from two cohorts (n = 61) was assessed by Infinium EPIC 850 K BeadChip. Epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) results of individual cohorts were combined by random-effect meta-analysis. A three-stage selection procedure (discovery, n = 884; testing, n = 520; validation, n = 879) established an epigenetic risk score including 30 CpG sites. Epigenetic age was assessed by Horvath's multi-tissue clock and Shireby's cortical clock. RESULTS: EWAS meta-analysis revealed 149 CpG sites linked to 136 genes (P < 0.05 after Bonferroni correction) in blood and 23 CpG linked to 18 genes in brain (false discovery rate [FDR] < 5%). Gene-set analyses of blood EWAS results suggested enrichments in brain tissue types and in subunits of the kainate-selective glutamate receptor complex. Individual candidate genes of the brain EWAS could be assigned to neurodevelopmental or metabolic traits. The blood epigenetic risk score achieved an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.70 (0.67-0.73) in the validation set, comparable to analogous scores in other neurobehavioral disorders. A significant difference in biological age in blood or brain of RLS patients was not detectable. CONCLUSIONS: DNA methylation supports the notion of altered neurodevelopment in RLS. Epigenetic risk scores are reliably associated with RLS but require even higher accuracy to be useful as biomarkers. © 2023 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Blood DNA methylation provides an accurate biomarker of KMT2B-related dystonia and predicts onset.

Dystonia is a prevalent, heterogeneous movement disorder characterized by involuntarily abnormal postures. Biomarkers of dystonia are notoriously lacking. Here, a biomarker is reported for histone lysine methyltransferase (KMT2B)-deficient dystonia, a leading subtype among the individually rare monogenic dystonias. It was derived by applying a support vector machine to an episignature of 113 DNA CpG sites, which, in blood cells, showed significant epigenome-wide association with KMT2B deficiency and at least 1× log-fold change of methylation. This classifier was accurate both when tested on the general population and on samples with various other deficiencies of the epigenetic machinery, thus allowing for definitive evaluation of variants of uncertain significance and identifying patients who may profit from deep brain stimulation, a highly successful treatment in KMT2B-deficient dystonia. Methylation was increased in KMT2B deficiency at all 113 CpG sites. The coefficients of variation of the normalized methylation levels at these sites also perfectly classified the samples with KMT2B-deficient dystonia. Moreover, the mean of the normalized methylation levels correlated well with the age at onset of dystonia (P = 0.003)-being lower in samples with late or incomplete penetrance-thus serving as a predictor of disease onset and severity. Similarly, it may also function in monitoring the recently envisioned treatment of KMT2B deficiency by inhibition of DNA methylation.

Genome-wide association study reveals new insights into the heritability and genetic correlates of developmental dyslexia.

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a learning disorder affecting the ability to read, with a heritability of 40-60%. A notable part of this heritability remains unexplained, and large genetic studies are warranted to identify new susceptibility genes and clarify the genetic bases of dyslexia. We carried out a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on 2274 dyslexia cases and 6272 controls, testing associations at the single variant, gene, and pathway level, and estimating heritability using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. We also calculated polygenic scores (PGSs) based on large-scale GWAS data for different neuropsychiatric disorders and cortical brain measures, educational attainment, and fluid intelligence, testing them for association with dyslexia status in our sample. We observed statistically significant (p < 2.8 × 10-6) enrichment of associations at the gene level, for LOC388780 (20p13; uncharacterized gene), and for VEPH1 (3q25), a gene implicated in brain development. We estimated an SNP-based heritability of 20-25% for DD, and observed significant associations of dyslexia risk with PGSs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (at pT = 0.05 in the training GWAS: OR = 1.23[1.16; 1.30] per standard deviation increase; p = 8 × 10-13), bipolar disorder (1.53[1.44; 1.63]; p = 1 × 10-43), schizophrenia (1.36[1.28; 1.45]; p = 4 × 10-22), psychiatric cross-disorder susceptibility (1.23[1.16; 1.30]; p = 3 × 10-12), cortical thickness of the transverse temporal gyrus (0.90[0.86; 0.96]; p = 5 × 10-4), educational attainment (0.86[0.82; 0.91]; p = 2 × 10-7), and intelligence (0.72[0.68; 0.76]; p = 9 × 10-29). This study suggests an important contribution of common genetic variants to dyslexia risk, and novel genomic overlaps with psychiatric conditions like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and cross-disorder susceptibility. Moreover, it revealed the presence of shared genetic foundations with a neural correlate previously implicated in dyslexia by neuroimaging evidence.

Episignature analysis of moderate effects and mosaics.

DNA methylation classifiers ("episignatures") help to determine the pathogenicity of variants of uncertain significance (VUS). However, their sensitivity is limited due to their training on unambiguous cases with strong-effect variants so that the classification of variants with reduced effect size or in mosaic state may fail. Moreover, episignature evaluation of mosaics as a function of their degree of mosaicism has not been developed so far. We improved episignatures with respect to three categories. Applying (i) minimum-redundancy-maximum-relevance feature selection we reduced their length by up to one order of magnitude without loss of accuracy. Performing (ii) repeated re-training of a support vector machine classifier by step-wise inclusion of cases in the training set that reached probability scores larger than 0.5, we increased the sensitivity of the episignature-classifiers by 30%. In the newly diagnosed patients we confirmed the association between DNA methylation aberration and age at onset of KMT2B-deficient dystonia. Moreover, we found evidence for allelic series, including KMT2B-variants with moderate effects and comparatively mild phenotypes such as late-onset focal dystonia. Retrained classifiers also can detect mosaics that previously remained below the 0.5-threshold, as we showed for KMT2D-associated Kabuki syndrome. Conversely, episignature-classifiers are able to revoke erroneous exome calls of mosaicism, as we demonstrated by (iii) comparing presumed mosaic cases with a distribution of artificial in silico-mosaics that represented all the possible variation in degree of mosaicism, variant read sampling and methylation analysis.

Cis-epistasis at the LPA locus and risk of cardiovascular diseases.

AIMS: Coronary artery disease (CAD) has a strong genetic predisposition. However, despite substantial discoveries made by genome-wide association studies (GWAS), a large proportion of heritability awaits identification. Non-additive genetic effects might be responsible for part of the unaccounted genetic variance. Here, we attempted a proof-of-concept study to identify non-additive genetic effects, namely epistatic interactions, associated with CAD. METHODS AND RESULTS: We tested for epistatic interactions in 10 CAD case-control studies and UK Biobank with focus on 8068 SNPs at 56 loci with known associations with CAD risk. We identified a SNP pair located in cis at the LPA locus, rs1800769 and rs9458001, to be jointly associated with risk for CAD [odds ratio (OR) = 1.37, P = 1.07 × 10-11], peripheral arterial disease (OR = 1.22, P = 2.32 × 10-4), aortic stenosis (OR = 1.47, P = 6.95 × 10-7), hepatic lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)) transcript levels (beta = 0.39, P = 1.41 × 10-8), and Lp(a) serum levels (beta = 0.58, P = 8.7 × 10-32), while individual SNPs displayed no association. Further exploration of the LPA locus revealed a strong dependency of these associations on a rare variant, rs140570886, that was previously associated with Lp(a) levels. We confirmed increased CAD risk for heterozygous (relative OR = 1.46, P = 9.97 × 10-32) and individuals homozygous for the minor allele (relative OR = 1.77, P = 0.09) of rs140570886. Using forward model selection, we also show that epistatic interactions between rs140570886, rs9458001, and rs1800769 modulate the effects of the rs140570886 risk allele. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate the feasibility of a large-scale knowledge-based epistasis scan and provide rare evidence of an epistatic interaction in a complex human disease. We were directed to a variant (rs140570886) influencing risk through additive genetic as well as epistatic effects. In summary, this study provides deeper insights into the genetic architecture of a locus important for cardiovascular diseases.

Genome-wide association scan identifies new variants associated with a cognitive predictor of dyslexia.

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is one of the most prevalent learning disorders, with high impact on school and psychosocial development and high comorbidity with conditions like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, and anxiety. DD is characterized by deficits in different cognitive skills, including word reading, spelling, rapid naming, and phonology. To investigate the genetic basis of DD, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of these skills within one of the largest studies available, including nine cohorts of reading-impaired and typically developing children of European ancestry (N = 2562-3468). We observed a genome-wide significant effect (p < 1 × 10-8) on rapid automatized naming of letters (RANlet) for variants on 18q12.2, within MIR924HG (micro-RNA 924 host gene; rs17663182 p = 4.73 × 10-9), and a suggestive association on 8q12.3 within NKAIN3 (encoding a cation transporter; rs16928927, p = 2.25 × 10-8). rs17663182 (18q12.2) also showed genome-wide significant multivariate associations with RAN measures (p = 1.15 × 10-8) and with all the cognitive traits tested (p = 3.07 × 10-8), suggesting (relational) pleiotropic effects of this variant. A polygenic risk score (PRS) analysis revealed significant genetic overlaps of some of the DD-related traits with educational attainment (EDUyears) and ADHD. Reading and spelling abilities were positively associated with EDUyears (p ~ [10-5-10-7]) and negatively associated with ADHD PRS (p ~ [10-8-10-17]). This corroborates a long-standing hypothesis on the partly shared genetic etiology of DD and ADHD, at the genome-wide level. Our findings suggest new candidate DD susceptibility genes and provide new insights into the genetics of dyslexia and its comorbities.

Genome-wide mapping of genetic determinants influencing DNA methylation and gene expression in human hippocampus.

Emerging evidence emphasizes the strong impact of regulatory genomic elements in neurodevelopmental processes and the complex pathways of brain disorders. The present genome-wide quantitative trait loci analyses explore the cis-regulatory effects of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on DNA methylation (meQTL) and gene expression (eQTL) in 110 human hippocampal biopsies. We identify cis-meQTLs at 14,118 CpG methylation sites and cis-eQTLs for 302 3'-mRNA transcripts of 288 genes. Hippocampal cis-meQTL-CpGs are enriched in flanking regions of active promoters, CpG island shores, binding sites of the transcription factor CTCF and brain eQTLs. Cis-acting SNPs of hippocampal meQTLs and eQTLs significantly overlap schizophrenia-associated SNPs. Correlations of CpG methylation and RNA expression are found for 34 genes. Our comprehensive maps of cis-acting hippocampal meQTLs and eQTLs provide a link between disease-associated SNPs and the regulatory genome that will improve the functional interpretation of non-coding genetic variants in the molecular genetic dissection of brain disorders.