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Meta-Analysis
. 2022 Jun 2;109(6):1077-1091.
doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2022.04.010. Epub 2022 May 16.

Genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies 48 risk variants and highlights the role of the stria vascularis in hearing loss

Natalia Trpchevska  1 Maxim B Freidin  2 Linda Broer  3 Berthe C Oosterloo  4 Shuyang Yao  5 Yitian Zhou  1 Barbara Vona  6 Charles Bishop  7 Argyro Bizaki-Vallaskangas  8 Barbara Canlon  1 Fabio Castellana  9 Daniel I Chasman  10 Stacey Cherny  11 Kaare Christensen  12 Maria Pina Concas  13 Adolfo Correa  14 Ran Elkon  15 Estonian Biobank Research Team  16 Jonas Mengel-From  17 Yan Gao  18 Anne B S Giersch  19 Giorgia Girotto  20 Alexander Gudjonsson  21 Vilmundur Gudnason  22 Nancy L Heard-Costa  23 Ronna Hertzano  24 Jacob V B Hjelmborg  25 Jens Hjerling-Leffler  26 Howard J Hoffman  27 Jaakko Kaprio  28 Johannes Kettunen  29 Kristi Krebs  16 Anna K Kähler  5 Francois Lallemend  30 Lenore J Launer  31 I-Min Lee  32 Hampton Leonard  33 Chuan-Ming Li  27 Hubert Lowenheim  34 Patrik K E Magnusson  5 Joyce van Meurs  3 Lili Milani  16 Cynthia C Morton  35 Antti Mäkitie  36 Mike A Nalls  33 Giuseppe Giovanni Nardone  13 Marianne Nygaard  17 Teemu Palviainen  28 Sheila Pratt  37 Nicola Quaranta  38 Joel Rämö  28 Elmo Saarentaus  28 Rodolfo Sardone  9 Claudia L Satizabal  39 John M Schweinfurth  7 Sudha Seshadri  39 Eric Shiroma  40 Eldad Shulman  15 Eleanor Simonsick  41 Christopher Spankovich  7 Anke Tropitzsch  34 Volker M Lauschke  1 Patrick F Sullivan  42 Andre Goedegebure  4 Christopher R Cederroth  43 Frances M K Williams  2 Andries Paul Nagtegaal  4
Collaborators, Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies 48 risk variants and highlights the role of the stria vascularis in hearing loss

Natalia Trpchevska et al. Am J Hum Genet. .

Abstract

Hearing loss is one of the top contributors to years lived with disability and is a risk factor for dementia. Molecular evidence on the cellular origins of hearing loss in humans is growing. Here, we performed a genome-wide association meta-analysis of clinically diagnosed and self-reported hearing impairment on 723,266 individuals and identified 48 significant loci, 10 of which are novel. A large proportion of associations comprised missense variants, half of which lie within known familial hearing loss loci. We used single-cell RNA-sequencing data from mouse cochlea and brain and mapped common-variant genomic results to spindle, root, and basal cells from the stria vascularis, a structure in the cochlea necessary for normal hearing. Our findings indicate the importance of the stria vascularis in the mechanism of hearing impairment, providing future paths for developing targets for therapeutic intervention in hearing loss.

Keywords: ARHL; GWAS; basal cells; cochlea; genetics; hair cells; hearing loss; root cells; spindle cells; stria vascularis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. C.R.C. is supported by the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Center but the views expressed herein are his own and do not represent those of NIHR nor the UK Department of Health and Social Care. Y.Z. and V.M.L. are co-founders and shareholders of PersoMedix AB. In addition, V.M.L. is CEO and shareholder of HepaPredict AB and discloses support by the Robert Bosch Foundation, Merck KGaA, and Eli Lilly and Company. J.H.L. is co-founder and share-holder of Oscellaria AB. H.L. receives support from a consulting contract between Data Tecnica International and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH). M.A.N. received a competitive contract awarded to Data Tecnica International LLC by the National Institutes of Health to support open science research, and he also currently serves on the scientific advisory board for Clover Therapeutics and is an advisor to Neuron23 Inc as a data science fellow. P.F.S. is consultant and shareholder of Neumora.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
GWAS meta-analysis for ARHI (n = 723,266) (A) Origin of the datasets used for the meta-analysis of the ARHI GWAS: 8 European countries and the United States. (B) Manhattan plot displays all associations per variant ordered according to their genomic position on the x axis and showing the strength of the association with the −log10 transformed p values on the y axis. The threshold for genome-wide significance (p < 5 × 10−8) is indicated by the red line, while the blue line represents the suggestive threshold (p < 1 × 10−5).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Evaluation of enrichment of common-variant hearing loss GWAS results in scRNA-seq mouse datasets Schematic of the mouse cochlea (A) and the mouse brain (B) regions used for the enrichment analysis. Abbreviations: Amg, amygdala; Cbx, cerebellum; Ctx, cerebral cortex; DC, Deiters’ cells; Hi, hippocampus; Hy, hypothalamus; IHC, inner hair cells; Mb, midbrain; My, medulla; OB, olfactory bulb; OC, organ of Corti; OHC, outer hair cells; P, pons; Sc, spinal cord; Str, striatum; Th, thalamus. OC is magnified in box 1 and illustrates the IHC, OHC, and DC, whose enrichment is shown in (C). A color box links a specific cell to the schematic. The red line is the Bonferroni significance threshold (−log10 p value 1.77). The enrichment analysis using cells from the stria vascularis (box 2) and the spiral ganglion neuron region (box 3) reveals a significant enrichment for spindle root cells and basal cells (D). All type 1 spiral ganglion neurons (type 1a, b, c) were all labeled the same color for sake of clarity. Given the broad and scarce distribution of immune cells (monocytes, neutrophils, and B cells), these are not shown on the schematic. The red line shows the Bonferroni significance threshold (−log10 p value 2.42) (E). Mouse nervous system cell type enrichment showing no significant enrichment. The red line shows the Bonferroni significance threshold (−log10 p value 2.89). Images from (A) and (B) were reproduced from previous work, , with permission from Nature Springer.

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