Whole-genome sequencing in 333,100 individuals reveals rare non-coding single variant and aggregate associations with height
Gareth Hawkes, Robin N. Beaumont, Zilin Li, Ravi Mandla, Xihao Li, Christine M. Albert, Donna K. Arnett, Allison E. Ashley‐Koch, Aneel A. Ashrani, Kathleen C. Barnes, Eric Boerwinkle, Jennifer A. Brody, April P. Carson, Nathalie Chami, Yii‐Der Ida Chen, Mina K. Chung, Joanne E. Curran, Dawood Darbar, Patrick T. Ellinor, Myrian Fornage, Victor R. Gordeuk, Xiuqing Guo, Jiang He, Chii‐Min Hwu, Rita R. Kalyani, Robert C. Kaplan, Sharon Kardia, Charles Kooperberg, Ruth J. F. Loos, Steven A. Lubitz, Ryan L. Minster, Take Naseri, Satupaitea Viali, Braxton D. Mitchell, Joanne M. Murabito, Nicholette D. Palmer, Bruce M. Psaty, Susan Redline, M. Benjamin Shoemaker, Edwin K. Silverman, Marilyn J. Telen, Scott T. Weiss, Lisa R. Yanek, Hufeng Zhou, Ching‐Ti Liu, Kari E. North, Anne E. Justice, Jonathan M. Locke, Nick Owens, Anna Murray, Kashyap Patel, Timothy M. Frayling, Caroline F. Wright, Andrew R. Wood, Xihong Lin, Alisa K. Manning, Michael N. Weedon
Abstract
Abstract The role of rare non-coding variation in complex human phenotypes is still largely unknown. To elucidate the impact of rare variants in regulatory elements, we performed a whole-genome sequencing association analysis for height using 333,100 individuals from three datasets: UK Biobank (N = 200,003), TOPMed (N = 87,652) and All of Us (N = 45,445). We performed rare ( < 0.1% minor-allele-frequency) single-variant and aggregate testing of non-coding variants in regulatory regions based on proximal-regulatory, intergenic-regulatory and deep-intronic annotation. We observed 29 independent variants associated with height at P < $$6\times {10}^{-10}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mn>6</mml:mn> <mml:mo>×</mml:mo> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msup> </mml:math> after conditioning on previously reported variants, with effect sizes ranging from −7cm to +4.7 cm. We also identified and replicated non-coding aggregate-based associations proximal to HMGA1 containing variants associated with a 5 cm taller height and of highly-conserved variants in MIR497HG on chromosome 17. We have developed an approach for identifying non-coding rare variants in regulatory regions with large effects from whole-genome sequencing data associated with complex traits.