A Large-Scale Multi-ancestry Genome-wide Study Accounting for Smoking Behavior Identifies Multiple Significant Loci for Blood Pressure

Genome-wide association analysis advanced understanding of blood pressure (BP), a major risk factor for vascular conditions such as coronary heart disease and stroke. Accounting for smoking behavior may help identify BP loci and extend our knowledge of its genetic architecture. We performed genome-wide association meta-analyses of systolic and diastolic BP incorporating gene-smoking interactions in 610,091 individuals. Stage 1 analysis examined ∼18.8 million SNPs and small insertion/deletion variants in 129,913 individuals from four ancestries (European, African, Asian, and Hispanic) with follow-up analysis of promising variants in 480,178 additional individuals from five ancestries.

Source: The American Journal of Human Genetics - February 15, 2018 Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Yun J. Sung, Thomas W. Winkler, Lisa de las Fuentes, Amy R. Bentley, Michael R. Brown, Aldi T. Kraja, Karen Schwander, Ioanna Ntalla, Xiuqing Guo, Nora Franceschini, Yingchang Lu, Ching-Yu Cheng, Xueling Sim, Dina Vojinovic, Jonathan Marten, Solomon K. Mu Tags: Article Source Type: research