Institution
Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics
Facility•Oxford, United Kingdom•
About: Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics is a facility organization based out in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Genome-wide association study. The organization has 2122 authors who have published 4269 publications receiving 433899 citations.
Topics: Population, Genome-wide association study, Single-nucleotide polymorphism, Locus (genetics), Linkage disequilibrium
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
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TL;DR: Only a comprehensive understanding of the underlying genetic and epigenetic mechanisms, and the metabolic processes they govern, will allow us to manage, and eventually prevent, obesity.
305 citations
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TL;DR: Evidence from this large-scale human genetic and metabolomic study is consistent with a causal role of BCAA metabolism in the aetiology of type 2 diabetes.
Abstract: Background
Higher circulating levels of the branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs; i.e., isoleucine, leucine, and valine) are strongly associated with higher type 2 diabetes risk, but it is not known whether this association is causal. We undertook large-scale human genetic analyses to address this question.
Methods and Findings
Genome-wide studies of BCAA levels in 16,596 individuals revealed five genomic regions associated at genome-wide levels of significance (p < 5 × 10−8). The strongest signal was 21 kb upstream of the PPM1K gene (beta in standard deviations [SDs] of leucine per allele = 0.08, p = 3.9 × 10−25), encoding an activator of the mitochondrial branched-chain alpha-ketoacid dehydrogenase (BCKD) responsible for the rate-limiting step in BCAA catabolism. In another analysis, in up to 47,877 cases of type 2 diabetes and 267,694 controls, a genetically predicted difference of 1 SD in amino acid level was associated with an odds ratio for type 2 diabetes of 1.44 (95% CI 1.26–1.65, p = 9.5 × 10−8) for isoleucine, 1.85 (95% CI 1.41–2.42, p = 7.3 × 10−6) for leucine, and 1.54 (95% CI 1.28–1.84, p = 4.2 × 10−6) for valine. Estimates were highly consistent with those from prospective observational studies of the association between BCAA levels and incident type 2 diabetes in a meta-analysis of 1,992 cases and 4,319 non-cases. Metabolome-wide association analyses of BCAA-raising alleles revealed high specificity to the BCAA pathway and an accumulation of metabolites upstream of branched-chain alpha-ketoacid oxidation, consistent with reduced BCKD activity. Limitations of this study are that, while the association of genetic variants appeared highly specific, the possibility of pleiotropic associations cannot be entirely excluded. Similar to other complex phenotypes, genetic scores used in the study captured a limited proportion of the heritability in BCAA levels. Therefore, it is possible that only some of the mechanisms that increase BCAA levels or affect BCAA metabolism are implicated in type 2 diabetes.
Conclusions
Evidence from this large-scale human genetic and metabolomic study is consistent with a causal role of BCAA metabolism in the aetiology of type 2 diabetes.
305 citations
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TL;DR: A first-generation haplotype map of chromosome 19 is constructed using publicly available genetic markers and evolutionary modeling of the data indicates that recombination hot spots are not required to explain most of the observed blocks, providing that marker ascertainment and the observed marker spacing are considered.
Abstract: Recent studies of human populations suggest that the genome consists of chromosome segments that are ancestrally conserved ('haplotype blocks'; refs. 1-3) and have discrete boundaries defined by recombination hot spots(4,5). Using publicly available genetic markers(6), we have constructed a first-generation haplotype map of chromosome 19. As expected for this marker density(7), approximately one-third of the chromosome is encompassed within haplotype blocks. Evolutionary modeling of the data indicates that recombination hot spots are not required to explain most of the observed blocks, providing that marker ascertainment and the observed marker spacing are considered. In contrast, several long blocks are inconsistent with our evolutionary models, and different mechanisms could explain their origins.
304 citations
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TL;DR: This multiancestry study recommends investigation of the possible benefits of screening for the G6PD genotype along with using HbA1c to diagnose T2D in populations of African ancestry or groups where G 6PD deficiency is common, and investigates the effect of genetic risk-scores comprised of erythrocytic or glycemic variants on incident diabetes prediction and on prevalent diabetes screening performance.
Abstract: Background: Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) is used to diagnose type 2 diabetes (T2D) and assess glycemic control in patients with diabetes. Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identif ...
304 citations
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TL;DR: The integrated microRNA-mRNA global profiling approach has identified microRNAs independently associated with prognosis in breast cancer, and has validated known and predicted micro RNA-target interactions, and elucidated their association with key pathways that could represent novel therapeutic targets.
Abstract: microRNA expression profiling plays an emerging role in cancer classification and identification of therapeutic strategies. In this study, we have evaluated the benefits of a joint microRNA-mRNA analysis in breast cancer. Matched mRNA and microRNA global expression profiling was conducted in a well-annotated cohort of 207 cases with complete 10-year follow-up. Penalized Cox regression including microRNA expression, mRNA expression, and clinical covariates was used to identify microRNAs associated with distant relapse-free survival (DRFS) that provide independent prognostic information, and are not simply surrogates of previously identified prognostic covariates. Penalized regression was chosen to prevent overfitting. Furthermore, microRNA-mRNA relationships were explored by global expression analysis, and exploited to validate results in several published cohorts (n = 592 with DRFS, n = 1,050 with recurrence-free survival). Four microRNAs were independently associated with DRFS in estrogen receptor (ER)-positive (3 novel and 1 known; miR-128a) and 6 in ER-negative (5 novel and 1 known; miR-210) cases. Of the latter, miR-342, -27b, and -150 were prognostic also in triple receptor-negative tumors. Coordinated expression of predicted target genes and prognostic microRNAs strengthened these results, most significantly for miR-210, -128a, and -27b, whose targets were prognostic in meta-analysis of several cohorts. In addition, miR-210 and -128a showed coordinated expression with their cognate pri-microRNAs, which were themselves prognostic in independent cohorts. Our integrated microRNA-mRNA global profiling approach has identified microRNAs independently associated with prognosis in breast cancer. Furthermore, it has validated known and predicted microRNA-target interactions, and elucidated their association with key pathways that could represent novel therapeutic targets.
303 citations
Authors
Showing all 2127 results
Name | H-index | Papers | Citations |
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Mark I. McCarthy | 200 | 1028 | 187898 |
John P. A. Ioannidis | 185 | 1311 | 193612 |
Gonçalo R. Abecasis | 179 | 595 | 230323 |
Simon I. Hay | 165 | 557 | 153307 |
Robert Plomin | 151 | 1104 | 88588 |
Ashok Kumar | 151 | 5654 | 164086 |
Julian Parkhill | 149 | 759 | 104736 |
James F. Wilson | 146 | 677 | 101883 |
Jeremy K. Nicholson | 141 | 773 | 80275 |
Hugh Watkins | 128 | 524 | 91317 |
Erik Ingelsson | 124 | 538 | 85407 |
Claudia Langenberg | 124 | 452 | 67326 |
Adrian V. S. Hill | 122 | 589 | 64613 |
John A. Todd | 121 | 515 | 67413 |
Elaine Holmes | 119 | 560 | 58975 |