Publications by authors named "Hatzikotoulas K"

Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) results from a complex interplay between genetic predisposition and lifestyle factors. Both genetic susceptibility and unhealthy lifestyle are known to be associated with elevated T2D risk. However, their combined effects on T2D risk are not well studied.

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Discerning the mechanisms driving type 2 diabetes (T2D) pathophysiology from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) remains a challenge. To this end, we integrated omics information from 16 multi-tissue and multi-ancestry expression, protein, and metabolite quantitative trait loci (QTL) studies and 46 multi-ancestry GWAS for T2D-related traits with the largest, most ancestrally diverse T2D GWAS to date. Of the 1,289 T2D GWAS index variants, 716 (56%) demonstrated strong evidence of colocalization with a molecular or T2D-related trait, implicating 657 -effector genes, 1,691 distal-effector genes, 731 metabolites, and 43 T2D-related traits.

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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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Objective: Acute knee injury is associated with post-traumatic OA (PTOA). Very little is known about the genome-wide associations of PTOA when compared with idiopathic OA (iOA). Our objective was to describe the development of knee OA after a knee injury and its genetic associations in UK Biobank (UKB).

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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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  • Cardiometabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease significantly impact public health, and understanding the genetic control of proteins linked to these diseases may reveal their underlying biology.
  • Researchers conducted a protein quantitative trait locus (pQTL) analysis on 248 serum proteins in nearly 3,000 individuals from two Greek cohorts, identifying 301 pQTL variants associated with 170 proteins, including 12 rare variants.
  • They found specific proteins tied to cardiometabolic traits, such as Mep1b linked to HDL levels, and created a Mep1b knockout mouse model, highlighting the value of studying isolated populations for genetic research.
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The etiology of type 1 diabetes has polygenic and environmental determinants that lead to autoimmune responses against pancreatic β cells and promote β cell death. The autoimmunity is considered silent without metabolic consequences until late preclinical stages,and it remains unknown how early in the disease process the pancreatic β cell is compromised. To address this, we investigated preprandial nonfasting and postprandial blood glucose concentrations and islet autoantibody development in 1,050 children with high genetic risk of type 1 diabetes.

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The formation of pathological bone deposits within soft tissues, termed heterotopic ossification (HO), is common after trauma. However, the severity of HO formation varies substantially between individuals, from relatively isolated small bone islands through to extensive soft tissue replacement by bone giving rise to debilitating symptoms. The aim of this study was to identify novel candidate therapeutic molecular targets for severe HO.

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Osteoarthritis is a complex degenerative joint disease. Here, we investigate matched genotype and methylation profiles of primary chondrocytes from macroscopically intact (low-grade) and degraded (high-grade) osteoarthritis cartilage and from synoviocytes collected from 98 osteoarthritis-affected individuals undergoing knee replacement surgery. We perform an epigenome-wide association study of knee cartilage degeneration and report robustly replicating methylation markers, which reveal an etiologic mechanism linked to the migration of epithelial cells.

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Objectives: Observational analyses suggest that high bone mineral density (BMD) is a risk factor for osteoarthritis (OA); it is unclear whether this represents a causal effect or shared aetiology and whether these relationships are body mass index (BMI)-independent. We performed bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) to uncover the causal pathways between BMD, BMI and OA.

Methods: One-sample (1S)MR estimates were generated by two-stage least-squares regression.

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Osteoarthritis affects over 300 million people worldwide. Here, we conduct a genome-wide association study meta-analysis across 826,690 individuals (177,517 with osteoarthritis) and identify 100 independently associated risk variants across 11 osteoarthritis phenotypes, 52 of which have not been associated with the disease before. We report thumb and spine osteoarthritis risk variants and identify differences in genetic effects between weight-bearing and non-weight-bearing joints.

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Osteocytes are master regulators of the skeleton. We mapped the transcriptome of osteocytes from different skeletal sites, across age and sexes in mice to reveal genes and molecular programs that control this complex cellular-network. We define an osteocyte transcriptome signature of 1239 genes that distinguishes osteocytes from other cells.

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Article Synopsis
  • Podoconiosis is a severe leg condition caused by barefoot exposure to volcanic soil, linked to genetic factors in certain Ethiopian populations.
  • A second genome-wide association study (GWAS) with nearly 1,900 participants identified 14 significant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the HLA class II region associated with the condition, with the lead SNP being rs9270911.
  • Combining results from both GWAS studies revealed a total of 47 significant SNPs, reinforcing the idea that HLA-related immune responses play a crucial role in the development of podoconiosis.
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  • Researchers analyzed data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to explore genetic correlations across four eating disorder types and eight substance-use-related traits, involving large sample sizes ranging from ~2400 to ~537,000 participants.
  • Findings indicated positive genetic associations between anorexia nervosa and alcohol use disorder, as well as cannabis initiation, while some negative correlations were found between anorexia without binge eating and smoking behaviors, suggesting a complex relationship between these disorders influenced by genetic and possibly depressive factors.
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Genomic studies in African populations provide unique opportunities to understand disease etiology, human diversity, and population history. In the largest study of its kind, comprising genome-wide data from 6,400 individuals and whole-genome sequences from 1,978 individuals from rural Uganda, we find evidence of geographically correlated fine-scale population substructure. Historically, the ancestry of modern Ugandans was best represented by a mixture of ancient East African pastoralists.

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Characterized primarily by a low body-mass index, anorexia nervosa is a complex and serious illness, affecting 0.9-4% of women and 0.3% of men, with twin-based heritability estimates of 50-60%.

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Background: Periprosthetic osteolysis resulting in aseptic loosening is a leading cause of THA revision. Individuals vary in their susceptibility to osteolysis and heritable factors may contribute to this variation. However, the overall contribution that such variation makes to osteolysis risk is unknown.

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Article Synopsis
  • Osteoarthritis is a widespread musculoskeletal disease and a leading cause of global disability, prompting a large genome-wide association study analyzing various forms of the condition.
  • The study identified 64 genetic signals linked to osteoarthritis, 52 of which were previously unknown, significantly increasing the understanding of the disease's genetic basis.
  • Researchers highlighted key genes related to bone development diseases and identified potential therapeutic targets, including those with existing drugs or clinical trials aimed at treating osteoarthritis.
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  • Very low-depth sequencing is a promising, cost-effective method for analyzing rare genetic variations in complex traits, but its genotype quality and analytical power still need thorough investigation.
  • In a study involving 1,239 individuals from an isolated population, researchers established a reliable process for calling and imputing genotypes from very low-depth whole-genome sequencing, achieving high concordance with traditional high-depth methods.
  • The findings revealed that 1× depth sequencing could identify a greater number of true low-frequency variants and produced more significant association signals for quantitative traits compared to conventional genotyping approaches.
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  • The original article had a mistake in Fig. 2, where the labels "rare" and "common" were switched.
  • This error has been fixed in both the PDF and HTML formats of the article.
  • Readers can now find the correct information in the updated versions.
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The fortieth author's name was listed incorrectly. The correct presentation is A Keski-Rahkonen.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the impact of rare genetic variants on six cardiometabolic traits by analyzing the genomes of 1457 individuals from an isolated population.
  • It identifies significant rare regulatory variations that influence traits, separate from known common genetic signals.
  • Notably, the research highlights a connection between rare variants in the gene FAM189B and triglyceride levels, emphasizing its potential role in lipid metabolism.
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Developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) is the most common skeletal developmental disease. However, its genetic architecture is poorly understood. We conduct the largest DDH genome-wide association study to date and replicate our findings in independent cohorts.

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