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Journal ArticleDOI

A global reference for human genetic variation.

Adam Auton1, Gonçalo R. Abecasis2, David Altshuler3, Richard Durbin4  +514 moreInstitutions (90)
01 Oct 2015-Nature (Nature Publishing Group)-Vol. 526, Iss: 7571, pp 68-74
TL;DR: The 1000 Genomes Project set out to provide a comprehensive description of common human genetic variation by applying whole-genome sequencing to a diverse set of individuals from multiple populations, and has reconstructed the genomes of 2,504 individuals from 26 populations using a combination of low-coverage whole-generation sequencing, deep exome sequencing, and dense microarray genotyping.
Abstract: The 1000 Genomes Project set out to provide a comprehensive description of common human genetic variation by applying whole-genome sequencing to a diverse set of individuals from multiple populations. Here we report completion of the project, having reconstructed the genomes of 2,504 individuals from 26 populations using a combination of low-coverage whole-genome sequencing, deep exome sequencing, and dense microarray genotyping. We characterized a broad spectrum of genetic variation, in total over 88 million variants (84.7 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), 3.6 million short insertions/deletions (indels), and 60,000 structural variants), all phased onto high-quality haplotypes. This resource includes >99% of SNP variants with a frequency of >1% for a variety of ancestries. We describe the distribution of genetic variation across the global sample, and discuss the implications for common disease studies.
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Novel genetic overlap was found between ALS and diseases of the FTD spectrum, that the MAPT H1 haplotype confers risk for ALS, and the mitophagy-associated, proapoptotic protein BNIP1 as an ALS risk gene.
Abstract: Importance Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by loss of upper and lower motor neurons. Although novel ALS genetic variants have been identified, the shared genetic risk between ALS and other neurodegenerative disorders remains poorly understood. Objectives To examine whether there are common genetic variants that determine the risk for ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases and to identify their functional pathways. Design, Setting, and Participants In this study conducted from December 1, 2016, to August 1, 2017, the genetic overlap between ALS, sporadic frontotemporal dementia (FTD), FTD with TDP-43 inclusions, Parkinson disease (PD), Alzheimer disease (AD), corticobasal degeneration (CBD), and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) were systematically investigated in 124 876 cases and controls. No participants were excluded from this study. Diagnoses were established using consensus criteria. Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcomes were a list of novel loci and their functional pathways in ALS, FTD, PSP, and ALS mouse models. Results Among 124 876 cases and controls, genome-wide conjunction analyses of ALS, FTD, PD, AD, CBD, and PSP revealed significant genetic overlap between ALS and FTD at known ALS loci:rs13302855andrs3849942(nearest gene,C9orf72;P = .03 forrs13302855andP = .005 forrs3849942) andrs4239633(nearest gene,UNC13A;P = .03). Significant genetic overlap was also found between ALS and PSP atrs7224296, which tags theMAPTH1 haplotype (nearest gene,NSF;P = .045). Shared risk genes were enriched for pathways involving neuronal function and development. At a conditional FDRP Conclusions and Relevance This study found novel genetic overlap between ALS and diseases of the FTD spectrum, that theMAPTH1 haplotype confers risk for ALS, and identified the mitophagy-associated, proapoptotic proteinBNIP1as an ALS risk gene. Together, these findings suggest that sporadic ALS may represent a selectively pleiotropic, polygenic disorder.

80 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results indicate extant, rare genetic variants can have large functional effects on splicing at appreciable rates, even outside the context of disease, and MFASS enables their empirical assessment at scale.

80 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jan 2017-Heredity
TL;DR: The astonishing changes and progress that have occurred in the field of population genetics over the past 50 years are described, slightly longer than the time since the first Population Genetics Group (PGG) meeting in January 1968.
Abstract: We describe the astonishing changes and progress that have occurred in the field of population genetics over the past 50 years, slightly longer than the time since the first Population Genetics Group (PGG) meeting in January 1968. We review the major questions and controversies that have preoccupied population geneticists during this time (and were often hotly debated at PGG meetings). We show how theoretical and empirical work has combined to generate a highly productive interaction involving successive developments in the ability to characterise variability at the molecular level, to apply mathematical models to the interpretation of the data and to use the results to answer biologically important questions, even in nonmodel organisms. We also describe the changes from a field that was largely dominated by UK and North American biologists to a much more international one (with the PGG meetings having made important contributions to the increased number of population geneticists in several European countries). Although we concentrate on the earlier history of the field, because developments in recent years are more familiar to most contemporary researchers, we end with a brief outline of topics in which new understanding is still actively developing.

79 citations


Cites background from "A global reference for human geneti..."

  • ...Another important discovery was that the level of variability in a Drosophila gene is positively correlated with the local recombination rate (Aguadé et al., 1989; Begun and Aquadro, 1992)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The concordant impact observed for same phenotypes across populations points to a process of adaptive introgression, whereby ancestry-enriched SNPs with specific functional utility appear to have been retained in modern populations by virtue of their effects on health and fitness.
Abstract: Modern Latin American populations were formed via genetic admixture among ancestral source populations from Africa, the Americas and Europe. We are interested in studying how combinations of genetic ancestry in admixed Latin American populations may impact genomic determinants of health and disease. For this study, we characterized the impact of ancestry and admixture on genetic variants that underlie health- and disease-related phenotypes in population genomic samples from Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Puerto Rico. We analyzed a total of 347 admixed Latin American genomes along with 1102 putative ancestral source genomes from Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans. We characterized the genetic ancestry, relatedness, and admixture patterns for each of the admixed Latin American genomes, finding a spectrum of ancestry proportions within and between populations. We then identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with anomalous ancestry-enrichment patterns, i.e. SNPs that exist in any given Latin American population at a higher frequency than expected based on the population’s genetic ancestry profile. For this set of ancestry-enriched SNPs, we inspected their phenotypic impact on disease, metabolism, and the immune system. All four of the Latin American populations show ancestry-enrichment for a number of shared pathways, yielding evidence of similar selection pressures on these populations during their evolution. For example, all four populations show ancestry-enriched SNPs in multiple genes from immune system pathways, such as the cytokine receptor interaction, T cell receptor signaling, and antigen presentation pathways. We also found SNPs with excess African or European ancestry that are associated with ancestry-specific gene expression patterns and play crucial roles in the immune system and infectious disease responses. Genes from both the innate and adaptive immune system were found to be regulated by ancestry-enriched SNPs with population-specific regulatory effects. Ancestry-enriched SNPs in Latin American populations have a substantial effect on health- and disease-related phenotypes. The concordant impact observed for same phenotypes across populations points to a process of adaptive introgression, whereby ancestry-enriched SNPs with specific functional utility appear to have been retained in modern populations by virtue of their effects on health and fitness.

79 citations


Cites methods from "A global reference for human geneti..."

  • ...Matched whole genome sequencing based SNP genotype calls were obtained for the same 445 individuals from the phase 3 release of the 1KGP [19]....

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  • ...Whole genome sequences from four admixed Latin American populations – Colombia (n = 94), Mexico (n = 64), Peru (n = 85), and Puerto Rico (n = 104) – were taken from the 1000 Genomes Project (1KGP) phase 3 data release [19]: http://www....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A highly geographically clustered genetic structure in Finland is revealed and its connections to the settlement history as well as to the current dialectal regions of the Finnish language are reported.
Abstract: Coupling dense genotype data with new computational methods offers unprecedented opportunities for individual-level ancestry estimation once geographically precisely defined reference data sets become available. We study such a reference data set for Finland containing 2376 such individuals from the FINRISK Study survey of 1997 both of whose parents were born close to each other. This sampling strategy focuses on the population structure present in Finland before the 1950s. By using the recent haplotype-based methods ChromoPainter (CP) and FineSTRUCTURE (FS) we reveal a highly geographically clustered genetic structure in Finland and report its connections to the settlement history as well as to the current dialectal regions of the Finnish language. The main genetic division within Finland shows striking concordance with the 1323 borderline of the treaty of Noteborg. In general, we detect genetic substructure throughout the country, which reflects stronger regional genetic differences in Finland compared to, for example, the UK, which in a similar analysis was dominated by a single unstructured population. We expect that similar population genetic reference data sets will become available for many more populations in the near future with important applications, for example, in forensic genetics and in genetic association studies. With this in mind, we report those extensions of the CP + FS approach that we found most useful in our analyses of the Finnish data.

79 citations

References
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06 Sep 2012-Nature
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TL;DR: VCFtools is a software suite that implements various utilities for processing VCF files, including validation, merging, comparing and also provides a general Perl API.
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10,164 citations