A great start to 2023, with the publication of our transcriptome-wide association study of polycystic ovary syndrome

Congratulations to Sarah for leading this project!

Some key find from this work below:

  • Our TWAS uncovered an association between imputed ARL14EP expression and PCOS in two independent cohorts. We validated these findings by examining measured ARL14EP expression in a third PCOS cohort.
  • Colocalization analyses revealed tissue-specific eQTLs patterns - high evidence of colocalization was observed for the ARL14EP-testis-PCOS triplet. As hyperandrogenism is a defining feature of PCOS, future studies should investigate how testosterone modulates the effects of ALR14EP eQTLs.
  • We showed that PCOS-associated ARL14EP eQTLs occur in an ARL14EP divergent transcript. Antisense lncRNAs can influence the expression of their coding gene counterparts. Future stdies should investigate the link between PCOS-associated variants, ARL14EP-DT function and ARL14EP expression.
  • ARL14EP has been shown to play an important role in chromatin remodelling. Annotation analyses revealed that ARL14EP occurs within a region where extensive chromatin interactions are observed, including interactions with FSHB.
  • While none of the gene prioritization analyses prioritized FSHB as a likely causal gene, FSH levels are important in PCOS! Single cell multiomics analyses will provide improved insight into how FHSB, ARL14EP and ARL14EP-DT interact in the relevant cells in the context of PCOS.

Read more here: https://rdcu.be/c4wCo

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Britt Drögemöller
Assistant Professor
Canada Research Chair
in Pharmacogenomics and Precision Medicine