posted on 2019-04-04, 21:26authored byTony R. Merriman, Murray Cadzow, Marilyn E. Merriman, Amanda Phipps-Green, Ruth Topless, Abhishek Abhishek, Linda A. Bradbury, RUSSELL BUCHANANRUSSELL BUCHANAN, Katie Cremin, Janak de Zoysa, Michael Doherty, Catherine Hill, Tom W.J. Huizinga, Tim Jansen, M. Janssen, Leo A.B. Joosten, Fina Kurreeman, Susan Lester, Frederic Lioté, Donia Macartney-Coxson, Hirotaka Matsuo, Geraldine M McCarthy, Sally McCormick, Rinki Murphy, Karel Pavelka, Fernando Perez-Ruiz, Juan Puig, Timothy RDJ Radstake, Philip Riches, Maureen Rischmueller, Edward Roddy, Malcolm Smith, Eli A. Stahl, Blanka Stibůrková, Richard Stubbs, Anne-Kathrin Tausche, Rosario Torres, Rob Walker, Kentaro Yamamoto, Matthew A. Brown, Hyon K. Choi, Nicola Dalbeth, Jeffrey N. Miner, Alexander So, Lisa K. Stamp, Tanya Major
<p><b>Background/Purpose:</b> Genome wide
association studies (GWAS) have provided considerable insight into the
molecular control of urate levels. However, less is known about the progression
from asymptomatic hyperuricemia to gout. Our aim was to conduct a GWAS for gout
in people of European ancestry using the largest number of cases of gout to
date.</p>
<p><b><br></b></p><p><b>Methods:</b> This GWAS (7,431 cases
and 105,631 controls) was comprised of three data sets: a mixed New Zealand
(NZ), Eurogout, and Ardea Biosciences group (3,961 cases; 1,547 controls;
genotyped using the Illumina CoreExome v24 array, 547,644 markers), a composite
set from the Health Professionals Follow-Up (HPFS) and NursesÕ Health Studies
(NHS) (1,038 cases; 1,095 controls; genotyped using the Illumina OmniExpress
v12 array, 730,525 markers), and UK Biobank (2,432 cases; 102,989 controls; genotyped
using an Affymetrix Axiom array, 820,967 markers). The UK Biobank genotypes
were imputed to ~73.3M SNPs. Neither the NZ/Eurogout/Ardea nor NHS/HPFS
genotype sets were imputed. Markers found within all three data sets (234,062)
were identified and associated with gout (adjusted for sex and age), within
each data set separately, using PLINK v1.9. An inverse-variance weighted
meta-analysis of the results was then performed using the meta v4.4 package
within R v3.2.3. The overall genome inflation factor was 0.90.</p>
<p><b><br></b></p><p><b>Results:</b> There were nine loci
with experiment-wide significance (0.05/234,062; P < 2×10-7) for association
with gout: ABCG2 (OR=1.77), SLC2A9 (OR=1.69), GCKR (OR=1.24), MLXIPL (OR=1.18),
SLC17A1-A4 (OR=1.22), SLC16A9 (OR=1.18), SLC22A12 (OR=1.16), PDZK1 (OR=1.16),
TRIM46 (OR=1.15). All nine of these loci have been previously associated with
serum urate levels in genome-wide studies with the urate-increasing alleles
also associated with increased risk of gout in this study. </p>
<p><b><br></b></p><p><b>Conclusion:</b> Our data emphasize
the central importance of genetic involvement in serum urate levels, compared
to the genetic involvement in MSU crystal formation, or the innate immune
response, in determining gout.</p>