Articles in 2009

Germline mutations in PARK2 are a well-known cause of the neurodegenerative disorder Parkinson's disease. Here, Timothy Chan and colleagues report somatic mutations and intragenic deletions of PARK2 in glioblastoma, colon cancer and lung cancer.

Raoul Hennekam and colleagues report the identification of mutations in CCBE1 that cause Hennekam syndrome in humans. Features of Hennekam syndrome include lymphedema, lymphangiectasias, mental retardation and unusual facial characteristics. CCBE1 encodes Collagen and Calcium-Binding EGF domain-1, a secreted protein that has been shown to be required for embryonic lymphangiogenesis in zebrafish.

Steven McCarroll and colleagues examine common gene deletions in individuals that have undergone bone marrow transplantation. They find that risk of acute graft-versus-host disease is greater when the donor and recipient are mismatched for a homozygous deletion of UGT2B17.

Mary Carrington and colleagues follow up on an earlier association of a variant upstream of HLA-C to HIV viral load setpoint, showing that this variant is associated with high HLA-C cell surface expression and demonstrating a protective effect of the variant in viral load and disease progression.

Hakon Hakonarson and colleagues report the discovery of five new regions associated with susceptibility to early-onset inflammatory bowel disease. They also identify multiple loci previously implicated in the etiology of adult-onset Crohn's disease and/or ulcerative colitis as risk factors for early-onset forms of these diseases.

Michiaki Kubo and colleagues report results of a genome-wide association study of ulcerative colitis in the Japanese population. Their study identifies three new susceptibility loci for this common inflammatory bowel disease, including FCGR2A, which has previously been implicated in other autoimmune diseases.

The UK IBD Genetics Consortium and the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2 report results of a genome-wide association study of ulcerative colitis. They identify three new loci associated with the disease, including the HNF4A region on 20q13.

Tatsushi Toda and colleagues report results of a genome-wide association study of Parkinson's disease in the Japanese population. They identify four loci harboring common variants associated with Parkinson's disease, including two newly discovered risk regions on 1q32 and 4p15.

Andrew Singleton, Thomas Gasser and colleagues report results of a genome-wide association study of Parkinson's disease among individuals of European ancestry. They find genome-wide significant associations at two loci, SNCA and MAPT, and provide supporting evidence for a new risk locus on 1q32.

Michael Bamshad, Jay Shendure and colleagues report the first application of exome resequencing to identify the cause of a mendelian disorder. They sequenced the exomes of four individuals with Miller syndrome in three independent families and identify mutations in DHODH, a key enzyme in the pyrimidine de novo biosynthesis pathway, as causal for the disorder.

Arthur Beaudet and colleagues report a recurrent 680-kb deletion within chromosome 15q13.3 associated with a range of neurodevelopmental phenotypes, including developmental delay, mental retardation and seizures. The deletion lies within the previously reported 1.5-Mb 15q13.3 deletion and spans only two genes, CHRNA7 and OTUD7A.

Frank Costantini and colleagues report the identification of the ETS transcription factors, Etv4 and Etv5, as key targets of Ret signaling during kidney branching morphogenesis. Loss of Etv4 and Etv5 function in mice leads to complete failure of kidney development.

Karin Lundberg and colleagues explore gene-gene and gene-environment interactions in susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis, reporting an association of HLA-DRB1, PTPN22 and smoking stratified by the autoantigen CEP-1.

Colin Ross and colleagues report the association of variants in TPMT and COMT to cisplatin-induced hearing loss in children.

Soumya Raychaudhuri and colleagues demonstrate the utility of GRAIL, a software program used to prioritize results from genome-wide association studies for further replication, applied here to rheumatoid arthritis. The authors seek replication of their predictions in additional independent cohorts and report three new genetic loci associated with RA susceptibility.

The US Department of Health and Social Security's Public Health Service (PHS) ruled in 2005 that “Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.” Despite this, its Office of Research Integrity (ORI) risks giving the wrong impression that plagiarists have enduring conjugal rights to former collaborators' ideas.

Four genome-wide association studies report associations to a range of clinically relevant hematological traits. The candidate genes identified include many that are known to be important in iron homeostasis and red blood cell maturation.

Two new studies report improved statistics to predict whether an individual participated in a genome-wide association study based on aggregate allele or genotype frequency information. They demonstrate that it may be possible to release summary statistics for a subset of genetic markers in a study while maintaining individual privacy.