TY - JOUR T1 - Trans-ethnic meta-analysis of white blood cell phenotypes. JF - Hum Mol Genet Y1 - 2014 A1 - Keller, Margaux F A1 - Reiner, Alexander P A1 - Okada, Yukinori A1 - van Rooij, Frank J A A1 - Johnson, Andrew D A1 - Chen, Ming-Huei A1 - Smith, Albert V A1 - Morris, Andrew P A1 - Tanaka, Toshiko A1 - Ferrucci, Luigi A1 - Zonderman, Alan B A1 - Lettre, Guillaume A1 - Harris, Tamara A1 - Garcia, Melissa A1 - Bandinelli, Stefania A1 - Qayyum, Rehan A1 - Yanek, Lisa R A1 - Becker, Diane M A1 - Becker, Lewis C A1 - Kooperberg, Charles A1 - Keating, Brendan A1 - Reis, Jared A1 - Tang, Hua A1 - Boerwinkle, Eric A1 - Kamatani, Yoichiro A1 - Matsuda, Koichi A1 - Kamatani, Naoyuki A1 - Nakamura, Yusuke A1 - Kubo, Michiaki A1 - Liu, Simin A1 - Dehghan, Abbas A1 - Felix, Janine F A1 - Hofman, Albert A1 - Uitterlinden, André G A1 - van Duijn, Cornelia M A1 - Franco, Oscar H A1 - Longo, Dan L A1 - Singleton, Andrew B A1 - Psaty, Bruce M A1 - Evans, Michelle K A1 - Cupples, L Adrienne A1 - Rotter, Jerome I A1 - O'Donnell, Christopher J A1 - Takahashi, Atsushi A1 - Wilson, James G A1 - Ganesh, Santhi K A1 - Nalls, Mike A KW - African Americans KW - Asian Continental Ancestry Group KW - Bayes Theorem KW - European Continental Ancestry Group KW - Genome, Human KW - Genome-Wide Association Study KW - Genotype KW - Humans KW - Leukocyte Count KW - Leukocytes KW - Linkage Disequilibrium KW - Phenotype KW - Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide KW - Quantitative Trait Loci AB -

White blood cell (WBC) count is a common clinical measure used as a predictor of certain aspects of human health, including immunity and infection status. WBC count is also a complex trait that varies among individuals and ancestry groups. Differences in linkage disequilibrium structure and heterogeneity in allelic effects are expected to play a role in the associations observed between populations. Prior genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analyses have identified genomic loci associated with WBC and its subtypes, but much of the heritability of these phenotypes remains unexplained. Using GWAS summary statistics for over 50 000 individuals from three diverse populations (Japanese, African-American and European ancestry), a Bayesian model methodology was employed to account for heterogeneity between ancestry groups. This approach was used to perform a trans-ethnic meta-analysis of total WBC, neutrophil and monocyte counts. Ten previously known associations were replicated and six new loci were identified, including several regions harboring genes related to inflammation and immune cell function. Ninety-five percent credible interval regions were calculated to narrow the association signals and fine-map the putatively causal variants within loci. Finally, a conditional analysis was performed on the most significant SNPs identified by the trans-ethnic meta-analysis (MA), and nine secondary signals within loci previously associated with WBC or its subtypes were identified. This work illustrates the potential of trans-ethnic analysis and ascribes a critical role to multi-ethnic cohorts and consortia in exploring complex phenotypes with respect to variants that lie outside the European-biased GWAS pool.

VL - 23 IS - 25 U1 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25096241?dopt=Abstract ER -