1Cell 2012 Apr 149: 525-37
PMID22521361
TitleSequencing chromosomal abnormalities reveals neurodevelopmental loci that confer risk across diagnostic boundaries.
AbstractBalanced chromosomal abnormalities (BCAs) represent a relatively untapped reservoir of single-gene disruptions in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). We sequenced BCAs in patients with autism or related NDDs, revealing disruption of 33 loci in four general categories: (1) genes previously associated with abnormal neurodevelopment (e.g., AUTS2, FOXP1, and CDKL5), (2) single-gene contributors to microdeletion syndromes (MBD5, SATB2, EHMT1, and SNURF-SNRPN), (3) novel risk loci (e.g., CHD8, KIRREL3, and ZNF507), and (4) genes associated with later-onset psychiatric disorders (e.g., TCF4, ZNF804A, PDE10A, GRIN2B, and ANK3). We also discovered among neurodevelopmental cases a profoundly increased burden of copy-number variants from these 33 loci and a significant enrichment of polygenic risk alleles from genome-wide association studies of autism and schizophrenia. Our findings suggest a polygenic risk model of autism and reveal that some neurodevelopmental genes are sensitive to perturbation by multiple mutational mechanisms, leading to variable phenotypic outcomes that manifest at different life stages.
SCZ Keywordsschizophrenia
2Ann. Hum. Genet. 2016 Jan 80: 38-49
PMID26474449
TitlePractical Experience of the Application of a Weighted Burden Test to Whole Exome Sequence Data for Obesity and Schizophrenia.
AbstractFor biological and statistical reasons it makes sense to combine information from variants at the level of the gene. One may wish to give more weight to variants which are rare and those that are more likely to affect function. A combined weighting scheme, implemented in the SCOREASSOC program, was applied to whole exome sequence data for 1392 subjects with schizophrenia and 982 with obesity from the UK10K project. Results conformed fairly well with null hypothesis expectations and no individual gene was strongly implicated. However, a number of the higher ranked genes appear plausible candidates as being involved in one or other phenotype and may warrant further investigation. These include MC4R, NLGN2, CRP, DONSON, GTF3A, IL36B, ADCYAP1R1, ARSA, DLG1, SIK2, SLAIN1, UBE2Q2, ZNF507, CRHR1, MUSK, NSF, SNORD115, GDF3 and HIBADH. Some individual variants in these genes have different frequencies between cohorts and could be genotyped in additional subjects. For other genes, there is a general excess of variants at many different sites so attempts at replication would be more difficult. Overall, the weighted burden test provides a convenient method for using sequence data to highlight genes of interest.
SCZ Keywordsschizophrenia