APPROACHES TO IDENTIFY RARE AND COMMON GENETIC DETERMINANTS IN SEVERE COPD

大量证据表明，慢性阻塞性肺疾病（COPD）的易感性受到遗传因素的影响，但确定致病变异仍然具有挑战性。大多数复杂疾病（如COPD）的遗传研究都集中在常见遗传变异的作用上。然而，一些复杂的疾病研究已经证明了罕见变异的重要性；这些变异通常具有相对较强的影响。该提案将验证来自单基因人类综合征、全基因组关联研究和/或小鼠肺气肿模型的候选基因的罕见和常见变异有助于COPD易感性的假设。我们将使用第二代测序技术，在来自国家肺气肿治疗试验的400名严重肺气肿患者和来自规范衰老研究的400名肺功能正常的吸烟对照者中验证这一假设。具体目标是：1)在Illumina基因组分析仪上使用靶向多路方法发现变异；2)罕见变异分析，使用崩溃方法组合变异并增加功率，3)常见变异分析，包括在波士顿早发性COPD研究中的复制。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): ABSTRACT Substantial evidence indicates that susceptibility to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is influenced by genetic factors, yet identification of causative variants remains challenging. Most genetic studies of complex diseases such as COPD have focused on the role of common genetic variation. However, several complex disease studies have demonstrated the importance of rare variants; these variants have typically been of relatively strong effect. This proposal will test the hypothesis that both rare and common variants in candidate genes from monogenic human syndromes, genome-wide association studies, and/or mouse emphysema models contribute to COPD susceptibility. We will test this hypothesis in 400 subjects with severe emphysema from the National Emphysema Treatment Trial and a set of 400 smoking controls with normal lung function from the Normative Aging Study, using second-generation sequencing technology. The specific aims are 1) variation discovery using a targeted, multiplexed approach on the Illumina Genome Analyzer; 2) rare variant analysis, using a collapsing method to combine variants and increase power, and 3) common variant analysis, including replication in the Boston Early-Onset COPD Study. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE STATEMENT COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in the US. A comprehensive understanding of the genetic risk factors and pathobiology may lead to improvements in personalized diagnosis and treatment.