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Meta-Analysis
. 2013 Aug;45(8):902-906.
doi: 10.1038/ng.2694. Epub 2013 Jun 30.

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies identifies ten loci influencing allergic sensitization

Klaus Bønnelykke #  1 Melanie C Matheson #  2 Tune H Pers #  3   4   5   6 Raquel Granell  7 David P Strachan  8 Alexessander Couto Alves  9 Allan Linneberg  10 John A Curtin  11 Nicole M Warrington  12 Marie Standl  13 Marjan Kerkhof  14 Ingileif Jonsdottir  15   16 Blazenka K Bukvic  17 Marika Kaakinen  18   19 Patrick Sleimann  20   21 Gudmar Thorleifsson  15 Unnur Thorsteinsdottir  15   16 Katharina Schramm  22 Svetlana Baltic  23   24 Eskil Kreiner-Møller  1 Angela Simpson  11 Beate St Pourcain  7 Lachlan Coin  9 Jennie Hui  25   26   27   28 Eugene H Walters  29 Carla M T Tiesler  13 David L Duffy  30 Graham Jones  31 AAGCSusan M Ring  7 Wendy L McArdle  7   8 Loren Price  23   24 Colin F Robertson  32 Juha Pekkanen  33   34 Clara S Tang  30 Elisabeth Thiering  13 Grant W Montgomery  30 Anna-Liisa Hartikainen  35 Shyamali C Dharmage  2 Lise L Husemoen  10 Christian Herder  36 John P Kemp  7 Paul Elliot  9 Alan James  28   37   38 Melanie Waldenberger  39 Michael J Abramson  40 Benjamin P Fairfax  41 Julian C Knight  41 Ramneek Gupta  3 Philip J Thompson  23   24 Patrick Holt  42   43 Peter Sly  44 Joel N Hirschhorn  6   45   4   46 Mario Blekic  17 Stephan Weidinger  47 Hakon Hakonarsson  20   21 Kari Stefansson  15   16 Joachim Heinrich  13 Dirkje S Postma  48 Adnan Custovic  11 Craig E Pennell  12 Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin  18   19   49   50   51 Gerard H Koppelman  52 Nicholas Timpson  7 Manuel A Ferreira  30 Hans Bisgaard  1 A John Henderson  7
Collaborators, Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies identifies ten loci influencing allergic sensitization

Klaus Bønnelykke et al. Nat Genet. 2013 Aug.

Abstract

Allergen-specific immunoglobulin E (present in allergic sensitization) has a central role in the pathogenesis of allergic disease. We performed the first large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) of allergic sensitization in 5,789 affected individuals and 10,056 controls and followed up the top SNP at each of 26 loci in 6,114 affected individuals and 9,920 controls. We increased the number of susceptibility loci with genome-wide significant association with allergic sensitization from three to ten, including SNPs in or near TLR6, C11orf30, STAT6, SLC25A46, HLA-DQB1, IL1RL1, LPP, MYC, IL2 and HLA-B. All the top SNPs were associated with allergic symptoms in an independent study. Risk-associated variants at these ten loci were estimated to account for at least 25% of allergic sensitization and allergic rhinitis. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying these associations may provide new insights into the etiology of allergic disease.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing financial interests

I.J., G.T., U.T. and K. Stefansson are employees of deCODE genetics. The remaining authors declared no competing interests of relevance to this paper.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Manhattan plot for the discovery genome-wide association meta-analysis.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Gene set enrichment map for the 11 significant gene sets from the MAGENTA analysis.
Vertices depict pathways and edges depict the mutually overlapping genes, suggesting that significant pathways are highly overlapping.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Combined impact of risk alleles from the 10 genome-wide significant loci on prevalence of allergic sensitization and allergic rhinitis (hay fever) in the population-based Health2006 replication study.
(a-c) For each individual a genetic risk score was calculated by applying the per-allele risk estimates from the replication sets, to the number of higher-risk alleles of each of the 10 genome-wide significant loci (one SNP per locus). The risk-score thus represents an index of the number of weighted risk alleles. Along the × axis, individuals in each risk score interval are shown, and the prevalence of sensitization/hay fever in each interval is plotted (y axis on right). The histogram (y axis on left) represents the number of individuals in each risk score interval. (a) Sensitization measured by Skin Prick Test. (b) Sensitization measured by Specific IgE in blood (circles and triangles depict sensitization prevalence with an IgE level cut off of 0.35 IU/mL and 3.5 IU/mL respectively). (c) Hayfever.

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