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. 2015 Aug 18:6:7502.
doi: 10.1038/ncomms8502.

Genome-wide association of polycystic ovary syndrome implicates alterations in gonadotropin secretion in European ancestry populations

Collaborators, Affiliations

Genome-wide association of polycystic ovary syndrome implicates alterations in gonadotropin secretion in European ancestry populations

M Geoffrey Hayes et al. Nat Commun. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common, highly heritable complex disorder of unknown aetiology characterized by hyperandrogenism, chronic anovulation and defects in glucose homeostasis. Increased luteinizing hormone relative to follicle-stimulating hormone secretion, insulin resistance and developmental exposure to androgens are hypothesized to play a causal role in PCOS. Here we map common genetic susceptibility loci in European ancestry women for the National Institutes of Health PCOS phenotype, which confers the highest risk for metabolic morbidities, as well as reproductive hormone levels. Three loci reach genome-wide significance in the case-control meta-analysis, two novel loci mapping to chr 8p23.1 [Corrected] and chr 11p14.1, and a chr 9q22.32 locus previously found in Chinese PCOS. The same chr 11p14.1 SNP, rs11031006, in the region of the follicle-stimulating hormone B polypeptide (FSHB) gene strongly associates with PCOS diagnosis and luteinizing hormone levels. These findings implicate neuroendocrine changes in disease pathogenesis.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Genome-wide association results for traits with genomewide significant hits in the meta-analysis of GWAS and replication phases.
Manhattan plots for a. PCOS, b. LH levels. Alternating blue and red colours indicate genotyped SNPs, and accompanying black and grey colours indicate imputed variants, on odd and even chromosomes, respectively. The red horizontal red line indicates genomewide significance. QQ plots and λGC/ λGC1000 are inset in the upper right corner of each plot. For (a) PCOS, P values are from sample-size weighted two-strata meta-analysis of strata-specific logistic regression P values (Stage 1: 984 cases and 2,964 population control women; Stage 2: 1,799 PCOS cases and 1,231 phenotyped reproductively normal control women). For (b) LH levels, P values are from sample-size weighted two-strata meta-analysis of strata-specific linear regression P values (Stage 1: 645 PCOS cases; Stage 2: 399 PCOS cases).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Locuszoom plot of association results, linkage disequilibrium and recombination rates around the genome-wide significant loci.
(a) Chr. 9 PCOS locus (c9orf3/FANCC), (b) Chr. 11 PCOS locus (FSHB/ARL14EP), (c) Chr. 8 PCOS locus (GATA4/NEIL2), (d) Chr. 11 LH locus (FSHB/ARL14EP). In each, the top panel reflects the meta-analysis results of the combined GWAS and replication phases. The LD estimates are colour coded as a heatmap from dark blue (0≥r2>0.2) to red (0.8≥r2>1.0). Recombination hotspots are indicated by the yellow lines (recombination rate in cM Mb-1 from HapMap (http://hapmap.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/downloads/recombination/2008-03_rel22_B36/rates/)). The bottom panel shows the genes and their orientation for each region. For (ac) PCOS loci, P values are from sample-size weighted two-strata meta-analysis of strata-specific logistic regression P values (Stage 1: 984 cases and 2,964 population control women; Stage 2: 1,799 PCOS cases and 1,231 phenotyped reproductively normal control women). For (d) LH level locus, P values are from sample-size weighted two-strata meta-analysis of strata-specific linear regression P values (Stage 1: 645 PCOS cases; Stage 2: 399 PCOS cases).
Figure 3
Figure 3. ENCODE histone mark profile for genomewide significant PCOS and LH level GWAS loci (http://www.roadmapepigenomics.org/data).
Methylation marks in four PCOS relevant human tissue mapping to: (a) Chr. 9 PCOS locus (c9orf3/FANCC), (b) Chr. 11 PCOS and LH level locus (FSHB/ARL14EP) and (c) Chr. 8 PCOS locus (GATA4/NEIL2). Each is a schematic of the genomic region including diagrams of genes mapping to the region. ChipSeq signal tracks for each tissue (AN, adipose nuclei; AL, adult liver; PI, pancreatic islets; SM, skeletal muscle) for six histone marks (H3K27m3, H3K36m3, H3K4m1, H3K4m3, H3K9ac and H3K9m3) are labelled to the left of the panel.
Figure 4
Figure 4. ENCODE mRNA levels for genome-wide significant PCOS and LH level GWAS loci (http://www.roadmapepigenomics.org/data).
RNAseq levels in four PCOS relevant human tissue mapping to the (a) Chr. 9 PCOS locus (c9orf3/FANCC), (b) Chr. 11 PCOS and LH level locus (FSHB/ARL14EP) and (c) Chr. 8 PCOS locus (GATA4/NEIL2). Each is a schematic of the genomic region including diagrams of genes mapping to the region. Sources of RNA are labelled to the left of the panel.

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