Genetic Analysis of 400 Patients Refines Understanding And
BASIC RESEARCH www.jasn.org Genetic Analysis of 400 Patients Refines Understanding and Implicates a New Gene in Atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome Fengxiao Bu,1,2 Yuzhou Zhang,2 Kai Wang,3 Nicolo Ghiringhelli Borsa,2 Michael B. Jones,2 Amanda O. Taylor,2 Erika Takanami,2 Nicole C. Meyer,2 Kathy Frees,2 Christie P. Thomas,4 Carla Nester,2,4,5 and Richard J.H. Smith2,4,5 1Medical Genetics Center, Southwest Hospital, Chongqing, China; and 2Molecular Otolaryngology and Renal Research Laboratories, 3College of Public Health, 4Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, Carver College of Medicine, and 5Department of Pediatrics, Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa ABSTRACT Background Genetic variation in complement genes is a predisposing factor for atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS), a life-threatening thrombotic microangiopathy, however interpreting the effects of genetic variants is challenging and often ambiguous. Methods We analyzed 93 complement and coagulation genes in 400 patients with aHUS, using as controls 600 healthy individuals from Iowa and 63,345 non-Finnish European individuals from the Genome Aggre- gation Database. After adjusting for population stratification, we then applied the Fisher exact, modified Poisson exact, and optimal unified sequence kernel association tests to assess gene-based variant burden. We also applied a sliding-window analysis to define the frequency range over which variant burden was significant. Results We found that patients with aHUS are enriched for ultrarare coding variants in the CFH, C3, CD46, CFI, DGKE,andVTN genes. The majority of the significance is contributed by variants with a minor allele frequency of ,0.1%.
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