Publications by authors named "Charles N Rotimi"

Article Synopsis
  • Genomic research is increasingly important for health improvement, but diverse populations, especially Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) communities, are often underrepresented.
  • The article examines the characteristics of NHPI populations that affect their inclusion in genomic studies and analyzes their representation in the genome-wide association studies (GWAS) catalog.
  • It discusses the barriers NHPI communities face in participating in research and offers recommendations for enhancing their representation in genomic research initiatives.
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Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers analyzed lipid metabolites in 308 Nigerians and replicated findings in 199 Kenyans, discovering that 99 metabolites significantly correlated with TG and that these findings largely held true across both groups.
  • * The study reveals that certain lipid classes may mediate the relationship between TG and various metabolic traits like type 2 diabetes and cholesterol levels, providing insight into how TG may impact health across different ancestries.
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Asthma has striking disparities across ancestral groups, but the molecular underpinning of these differences is poorly understood and minimally studied. A goal of the Consortium on Asthma among African-ancestry Populations in the Americas (CAAPA) is to understand multi-omic signatures of asthma focusing on populations of African ancestry. RNASeq and DNA methylation data are generated from nasal epithelium including cases (current asthma, N = 253) and controls (never-asthma, N = 283) from 7 different geographic sites to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and gene networks.

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There is a long-standing debate about the magnitude of the contribution of gene-environment interactions to phenotypic variations of complex traits owing to the low statistical power and few reported interactions to date. To address this issue, the Gene-Lifestyle Interactions Working Group within the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genetic Epidemiology Consortium has been spearheading efforts to investigate G × E in large and diverse samples through meta-analysis. Here, we present a powerful new approach to screen for interactions across the genome, an approach that shares substantial similarity to the Mendelian randomization framework.

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Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has reached epidemic proportions globally, including in Africa. However, molecular studies to understand the pathophysiology of T2D remain scarce outside Europe and North America. The aims of this study are to use an untargeted metabolomics approach to identify: (a) metabolites that are differentially expressed between individuals with and without T2D and (b) a metabolic signature associated with T2D in a population of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

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Article Synopsis
  • Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a complex disease influenced by various genetic factors and molecular mechanisms that vary by cell type and ancestry.
  • In a large study involving over 2.5 million individuals, researchers identified 1,289 significant genetic associations linked to T2D, including 145 new loci not previously reported.
  • The study categorized T2D signals into eight distinct clusters based on their connections to cardiometabolic traits and showed that these genetic profiles are linked to vascular complications, emphasizing the role of obesity-related processes across different ancestry groups.
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Article Synopsis
  • Certain cytokines and hormones are believed to influence the development and progression of type 2 diabetes (T2D), but human studies on this topic are limited; this research focuses on their associations among sub-Saharan African populations.
  • The study involved analyzing data from 4,066 individuals (2,276 with T2D and 2,790 without) to identify how 11 specific cytokines and hormones relate to T2D and to assess their effects on insulin sensitivity and β-cell function.
  • Results indicated that GIP and IL-1RA levels are associated with T2D, and these cytokines showed causal effects on insulin sensitivity and function, with some effects being partially mediated by body mass index (BMI).
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Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers studied 800 BL patients and 3,845 controls across four East African countries to see if genetic traits that protect against malaria also protect against BL, focusing on specific gene variants.
  • * Findings showed that the sickle cell gene variant (HBB-rs334(T)) was linked to lower risks of both malaria infection and BL, suggesting a possible connection between malaria and the development of Burkitt lymphoma.
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Article Synopsis
  • - The study analyzes genome-wide data from around 19,000 individuals of European ancestry, revealing that these populations are stratified and admixed at the subcontinental level, which can impact genetic research results.
  • - A new reference panel was created to include ancestral diversity that previous projects overlooked, emphasizing the complexity of ancestry in European and European American groups.
  • - Adjustments for both overall and specific ancestry revealed that some associations, like those between a variant in the LCT gene and certain health traits, were false positives, highlighting the importance of considering ancestry in genetic epidemiology.
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Article Synopsis
  • Most human populations have mixed ancestry, necessitating adjustments for specific ancestral background in genetic association studies.
  • A new joint test was created that combines ancestry and genetic association, allowing it to work with summary statistics and improve power in detecting associations.
  • The test was demonstrated through a study on serum triglycerides and LPL, successfully identifying three significant variants by analyzing data from diverse ancestral groups and showing better prediction when accounting for these factors.
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Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a heterogeneous disease that develops through diverse pathophysiological processes. To characterise the genetic contribution to these processes across ancestry groups, we aggregate genome-wide association study (GWAS) data from 2,535,601 individuals (39.7% non-European ancestry), including 428,452 T2D cases.

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Background: West Africans and African Americans with substantial (∼80%) West African ancestry are characterized by low levels of triglycerides (TG) compared to East Africans and Europeans. The impact of these varying TG levels on other cardiometabolic risk factors is unclear. We compared the strength of association between TG with hypertension, blood pressure, BMI, waist circumference, type 2 diabetes (T2D), and fasting glucose across West African (WA), East African (EA), and European (EU) ancestry populations residing in three vastly different environmental settings: sub-Saharan Africa, United States, and Europe.

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This article is based on the address given by the author at the 2022 meeting of The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) in Los Angeles, California. The video of the original address can be found at the ASHG website.

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Background: Genetic variants within nearly 1000 loci are known to contribute to modulation of blood lipid levels. However, the biological pathways underlying these associations are frequently unknown, limiting understanding of these findings and hindering downstream translational efforts such as drug target discovery.

Results: To expand our understanding of the underlying biological pathways and mechanisms controlling blood lipid levels, we leverage a large multi-ancestry meta-analysis (N = 1,654,960) of blood lipids to prioritize putative causal genes for 2286 lipid associations using six gene prediction approaches.

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Though both genetic and lifestyle factors are known to influence cardiometabolic outcomes, less attention has been given to whether lifestyle exposures can alter the association between a genetic variant and these outcomes. The Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Consortium's Gene-Lifestyle Interactions Working Group has recently published investigations of genome-wide gene-environment interactions in large multi-ancestry meta-analyses with a focus on cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption as lifestyle factors and blood pressure and serum lipids as outcomes. Further description of the biological mechanisms underlying these statistical interactions would represent a significant advance in our understanding of gene-environment interactions, yet accessing and harmonizing individual-level genetic and 'omics data is challenging.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study aimed to clarify the causal relationship between adiponectin levels and various cardiometabolic traits in sub-Saharan Africans using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.
  • A polygenic risk score (PRS) for adiponectin was developed from 3,354 unrelated individuals and used to analyze associations with traits like LDL, insulin resistance, and Type 2 Diabetes (T2D).
  • The results indicated a causal link between higher adiponectin levels and reduced LDL, primarily in overweight/obese individuals, while also showing associations with T2D in normal weight individuals and HDL in men.
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  • - The study analyzed data from 703,901 individuals and identified 99 genetic loci related to physical activity levels and sedentary behavior, particularly focusing on leisure time activities and screen use.
  • - Certain genes linked to sedentary behavior show heightened expression in skeletal muscle when influenced by resistance training, highlighting a connection between genetics and exercise.
  • - The findings suggest that lower screen time and increased physical activity can positively impact health, but these effects may be influenced by factors like body mass index (BMI).
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  • Researchers studied the genetic connections to blood fats using data from 1.6 million people from different backgrounds to understand why certain fats are higher or lower in the body.
  • They looked at special genes and how they interact in the liver and fat cells, finding that the liver plays a big part in controlling fat levels.
  • Two specific genes, CREBRF and RRBP1, were highlighted as important in understanding how our bodies manage fats due to strong supporting evidence.
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Background: African Americans have a high risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D) and insulin resistance. Studies among other population groups have identified DNA methylation loci associated with insulin resistance, but data in African Americans are lacking. Using DNA methylation profiles of blood samples obtained from the Illumina Infinium® HumanMethylation450 BeadChip, we performed an epigenome-wide association study to identify DNA methylation loci associated with insulin resistance among 136 non-diabetic, unrelated African American men (mean age 41.

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Impaired glucose tolerance is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes (T2D) and several cardiometabolic disorders. To identify genetic loci underlying fasting glucose levels, we conducted an analysis of 9,232 individuals of European ancestry who at enrollment were either nondiabetic or had untreated type 2 diabetes. Multivariable linear mixed models were used to test for associations between fasting glucose and 7.

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We assembled an ancestrally diverse collection of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in 180,834 affected individuals and 1,159,055 controls (48.9% non-European descent) through the Diabetes Meta-Analysis of Trans-Ethnic association studies (DIAMANTE) Consortium. Multi-ancestry GWAS meta-analysis identified 237 loci attaining stringent genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10), which were delineated to 338 distinct association signals.

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The role and biological significance of gene-environment interactions in human traits and diseases remain poorly understood. To address these questions, the CHARGE Gene-Lifestyle Interactions Working Group conducted series of genome-wide interaction studies (GWIS) involving up to 610,475 individuals across four ancestries for three lipids and four blood pressure traits, while accounting for interaction effects with drinking and smoking exposures. Here we used GWIS summary statistics from these studies to decipher potential differences in genetic associations and G×E interactions across phenotype-exposure-ancestry combinations, and to derive insights on the potential mechanistic underlying G×E through in-silico functional analyses.

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Identification of key regulators of energy homeostasis holds important therapeutic promise for metabolic disorders, such as obesity and diabetes. ACE2 cleaves angiotensin II (Ang II) to generate Ang-(1-7) which acts mainly through the Mas1 receptor. Here, we identify ACE2 pathway as a critical regulator in the maintenance of thermogenesis and energy expenditure.

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