Replication of the 4p16 susceptibility locus in congenital heart disease in Han Chinese populations

PLoS One. 2014 Sep 12;9(9):e107411. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0107411. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common form of congenital human birth anomalies and a leading cause of perinatal and infant mortality. Some studies including our published genome-wide association study (GWAS) of CHD have indicated that genetic variants may contribute to the risk of CHD. Recently, Cordell et al. published a GWAS of multiple CHD phenotypes in European Caucasians and identified 3 susceptibility loci (rs870142, rs16835979 and rs6824295) for ostium secundum atrial septal defect (ASD) at chromosome 4p16. However, whether these loci at 4p16 confer the predisposition to CHD in Chinese population is unclear. In the current study, we first analyzed the associations between these 3 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at 4p16 and CHD risk by using our existing genome-wide scan data and found all of the 3 SNPs showed significant associations with ASD in the same direction as that observed in Cordell's study, but not with other subtypes- ventricular septal defect (VSD) and ASD combined VSD. As these 3 SNPs were in high linkage disequilibrium (LD) in Chinese population, we selected one SNP with the lowest P value in our GWAS scan (rs16835979) to perform a replication study with additional 1,709 CHD cases with multiple phenotypes and 1,962 controls. The significant association was also observed only within the ASD subgroup, which was heterogeneous from other disease groups. In combined GWAS and replication samples, the minor allele of rs16835979 remained significant association with the risk of ASD (OR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.08-1.38, P = 0.001). Our findings suggest that susceptibility loci of ASD identified from Cordell's European GWAS are generalizable to Chinese population, and such investigation may provide new insights into the roles of genetic variants in the etiology of different CHD phenotypes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Alleles
  • Asian People
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Chromosomes, Human, Pair 4 / genetics*
  • Female
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease*
  • Genome-Wide Association Study
  • Genotype
  • Heart Septal Defects, Atrial / genetics*
  • Heart Septal Defects, Atrial / pathology
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Infant, Newborn
  • Linkage Disequilibrium
  • Male
  • Phenotype
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
  • Transcription Factors / genetics*

Substances

  • Transcription Factors

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the following sources: National Key Basic Research Program Grant (2011CB944300, 2013CB911400 and 2012CB944902), the National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (81225020), the New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-10-0178), the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Jiangsu Outstanding Youth Science Foundation (BK2012042), Jiangsu Province Clinical Science and Technology Projects (BL2012008), the Priority Academic Program for the Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (Public Health and Preventive Medicine) and Collaborative Innovation Center For Cancer Personalized Medicine in Jiangsu Province. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.