Link to Pubmed [PMID] – 28927820
J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 2018 May;141(5):1659-1667.e11
BACKGROUND: Atopy, an endotype underlying allergic diseases, has a substantial genetic component.
OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to identify novel genes associated with atopy in asthma-ascertained families.
METHODS: We implemented a 3-step analysis strategy in 3 data sets: the Epidemiological Study on the Genetics and Environment of Asthma (EGEA) data set (1660 subjects), the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean study data set (1138 subjects), and the Medical Research Council (MRC) data set (446 subjects). This strategy included a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genome-wide association study (GWAS), the selection of related gene pairs based on statistical filtering of GWAS results, and text-mining filtering using Gene Relationships Across Implicated Loci and SNP-SNP interaction analysis of selected gene pairs.
RESULTS: We identified the 5q14 locus, harboring the adhesion G protein-coupled receptor V1 (ADGRV1) gene, which showed genome-wide significant association with atopy (rs4916831, meta-analysis P value = 6.8 × 10). Statistical filtering of GWAS results followed by text-mining filtering revealed relationships between ADGRV1 and 3 genes showing suggestive association with atopy (P ≤ 10). SNP-SNP interaction analysis between ADGRV1 and these 3 genes showed significant interaction between ADGRV1 rs17554723 and 2 correlated SNPs (rs2134256 and rs1354187) within the dynein axonemal heavy chain 5 (DNAH5) gene (P = 3.6 × 10 and 6.1 × 10, which met the multiple-testing corrected threshold of 7.3 × 10). Further conditional analysis indicated that rs2134256 alone accounted for the interaction signal with rs17554723.
CONCLUSION: Because both DNAH5 and ADGRV1 contribute to ciliary function, this study suggests that ciliary dysfunction might represent a novel mechanism underlying atopy. Combining GWAS and epistasis analysis driven by statistical and knowledge-based evidence represents a promising approach for identifying new genes involved in complex traits.