Cited by 73Genetic Associations and EpidemiologyGenetic Mapping and Diversity in Plants and AnimalsGenomics and Chromatin Dynamics

A meta-analysis of gene expression quantitative trait loci in brain

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Kim, Y, Xia, K, Tao, R, Giusti-Rodriguez, P, Vladimirov, V, van den Oord, E, Sullivan, P F·2014·Translational Psychiatry

Abstract

Current catalogs of brain expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) are incomplete and the findings do not replicate well across studies. All existing cortical eQTL studies are small and emphasize the need for a meta-analysis. We performed a meta-analysis of 424 brain samples across five studies to identify regulatory variants influencing gene expression in human cortex. We identified 3584 genes in autosomes and chromosome X with false discovery rate q<0.05 whose expression was significantly associated with DNA sequence variation. Consistent with previous eQTL studies, local regulatory variants tended to occur symmetrically around transcription start sites and the effect was more evident in studies with large sample sizes. In contrast to random SNPs, we observed that significant eQTLs were more likely to be near 5'-untranslated regions and intersect with regulatory features. Permutation-based enrichment analysis revealed that SNPs associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were enriched among brain eQTLs. Genes with significant eQTL evidence were also strongly associated with diseases from OMIM (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man) and the NHGRI (National Human Genome Research Institute) genome-wide association study catalog. Surprisingly, we found that a large proportion (28%) of ~1000 autosomal genes encoding proteins needed for mitochondrial structure or function were eQTLs (enrichment P-value=1.3 × 10(-9)), suggesting a potential role for common genetic variation influencing the robustness of energy supply in brain and a possible role in the etiology of some psychiatric disorders. These systematically generated eQTL information should be a valuable resource in determining the functional mechanisms of brain gene expression and the underlying biology of associations with psychiatric disorders.

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Authors
Kim, Y., Xia, K., Tao, R., Giusti-Rodriguez, P., Vladimirov, V, van den Oord, E., & Sullivan, P. F.
Affiliations
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
  • Johns Hopkins University (US)
Corresponding author
Kim, Y
Venue
Translational Psychiatry
Published
2014-10-07
Volume
4
Issue
10
Pages
e459-e459
ISSN
2158-3188 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2055742054
Cited by
73
References
103
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 5
FWCI
1.15
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Translational Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • Stanley Medical Research Institute
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH097283)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Mapping and Diversity in Plants and Animals
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics
Keywords
expression quantitative trait loci, brain gene expression, human cortex, regulatory variants, single nucleotide polymorphisms, 5' untranslated region, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, mitochondrial genes, brain energy metabolism, mental illness
MeSH terms
Bipolar Disorder, Brain, Humans, Schizophrenia, Gene Expression, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Quantitative Trait Loci, Genome-Wide Association Study

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