Back

Multi-ancestry GWAS deciphers genetic architecture of abdominal aortic aneurysm and highlights PCSK9 as a therapeutic target

Roychowdhury, T.; Klarin, D.; Levin, M. G.; Spin, J. M.; Rhee, Y. H.; Deng, A.; Headley, C. A.; Surakka, I.; Tsao, N. L.; Gellatly, C.; Zuber, V.; Shen, F.; Hornsby, W. E.; Holst Laursen, I.; Verma, S. S.; Locke, A. E.; Einarsson, G.; Thorleifsson, G.; Graham, S. E.; Dikilitas, O.; Pattee, J. W.; Judy, R. L.; Pauls-Verges, F.; Nielsen, J. B.; Wolford, B. N.; Brumpton, B. M.; Dilme, J.; Peypoch, O.; Calsina Juscafresa, L.; Edwards, T. L.; Li, D.; Banasik, K.; Brunak, S.; Jacobsen, R. L.; Garcia-Barrio, M. T.; Zhang, J.; Rasmussen, L. M.; Lee, R.; Handa, A.; Wanhainen, A.; Mani, K.; Lindholt, J.

2022-05-29 genetic and genomic medicine
10.1101/2022.05.27.22275607 medRxiv
Show abstract

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a common disease with significant heritability. In this study, we performed a genome-wide association meta-analysis from 14 discovery cohorts and uncovered 144 independent associations, including 97 previously unreported loci. A polygenic risk score derived from meta-analysis was able to explain AAA beyond clinical risk factors. Genes at AAA risk loci indicate involvement of lipid metabolism, vascular development and remodeling, extracellular matrix dysregulation and inflammation as key mechanisms in the pathogenesis of AAA. We further integrated functional data to elucidate expression of genes associated with AAA. These genes also indicate crossover between the development of AAA and other monogenic aortopathies, particularly via TGF-{beta} signaling pathways. Motivated by the strong evidence for the role of lipid levels in AAA by PheWAS, we identified therapeutic opportunities using Mendelian Randomization and, in pre-clinical studies, we demonstrated that PCSK9 inhibition in mice prevented the development of AAA.

Matching journals

The top 8 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.