@article {460, title = {Genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies 29 new acne susceptibility loci}, journal = {Nature Communications}, volume = {13}, year = {2022}, pages = {702}, abstract = {

Acne vulgaris is a highly heritable skin disorder that primarily impacts facial skin. Severely inflamed lesions may leave permanent scars that have been associated with long-term psychosocial consequences. Here, we perform a GWAS meta-analysis comprising 20,165 individuals with acne from nine independent European ancestry cohorts. We identify 29 novel genome-wide significant loci and replicate 14 of the 17 previously identified risk loci, bringing the total number of reported acne risk loci to 46. Using fine-mapping and eQTL colocalisation approaches, we identify putative causal genes at several acne susceptibility loci that have previously been implicated in Mendelian hair and skin disorders, including pustular psoriasis. We identify shared genetic aetiology between acne, hormone levels, hormone-sensitive cancers and psychiatric traits. Finally, we show that a polygenic risk score calculated from our results explains up to 5.6\% of the variance in acne liability in an independent cohort.

}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-022-28252-5}, author = {Mitchell, Brittany L and Saklatvala, Jake R and Dand, Nick and Hagenbeek, Fiona A and Li, Xin and Min, Josine L and Thomas, Laurent and Bartels, Meike and Jan Hottenga, Jouke and Lupton, Michelle K and Boomsma, Dorret I and Dong, Xianjun and Hveem, Kristian and L{\o}set, Mari and Martin, Nicholas G and Barker, Jonathan N and Han, Jiali and Smith, Catherine H and Renter{\'\i}a, Miguel E and Simpson, Michael A} } @article {440, title = {Identical twins carry a persistent epigenetic signature of early genome programming}, journal = {Nature Communications}, volume = {12}, year = {2021}, pages = {5618}, abstract = {

Monozygotic (MZ) twins and higher-order multiples arise when a zygote splits during pre-implantation stages of development. The mechanisms underpinning this event have remained a mystery. Because MZ twinning rarely runs in families, the leading hypothesis is that it occurs at random. Here, we show that MZ twinning is strongly associated with a stable DNA methylation signature in adult somatic tissues. This signature spans regions near telomeres and centromeres, Polycomb-repressed regions and heterochromatin, genes involved in cell-adhesion, WNT signaling, cell fate, and putative human metastable epialleles. Our study also demonstrates a never-anticipated corollary: because identical twins keep a lifelong molecular signature, we can retrospectively diagnose if a person was conceived as monozygotic twin.

}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-021-25583-7}, author = {van Dongen, Jenny and Gordon, Scott D and McRae, Allan F and Odintsova, Veronika V and Mbarek, Hamdi and Breeze, Charles E and Sugden, Karen and Lundgren, Sara and Castillo-Fernandez, Juan E and Hannon, Eilis and Moffitt, Terrie E and Hagenbeek, Fiona A and van Beijsterveldt, Catharina E M and Jan Hottenga, Jouke and Tsai, Pei-Chien and BIOS Consortium and Genetics of DNA Methylation Consortium and Min, Josine L and Hemani, Gibran and Ehli, Erik A and Paul, Franziska and Stern, Claudio D and Heijmans, Bastiaan T and Slagboom, P Eline and Daxinger, Lucia and van der Maarel, Silv{\`e}re M and de Geus, Eco J C and Willemsen, Gonneke and Montgomery, Grant W and Reversade, Bruno and Ollikainen, Miina and Kaprio, Jaakko and Spector, Tim D and Bell, Jordana T and Mill, Jonathan and Caspi, Avshalom and Martin, Nicholas G and Boomsma, Dorret I} } @article {427, title = {Heritability estimates for 361 blood metabolites across 40 genome-wide association studies}, journal = {Nature Communications}, volume = {11}, year = {2020}, pages = {39}, abstract = {

Metabolomics examines the small molecules involved in cellular metabolism. Approximately 50\% of total phenotypic differences in metabolite levels is due to genetic variance, but heritability estimates differ across metabolite classes. We perform a review of all genome-wide association and (exome-) sequencing studies published between November 2008 and October 2018, and identify \>800 class-specific metabolite loci associated with metabolite levels. In a twin-family cohort (N = 5117), these metabolite loci are leveraged to simultaneously estimate total heritability (h2total), and the proportion of heritability captured by known metabolite loci (h2Metabolite-hits) for 309 lipids and 52 organic acids. Our study reveals significant differences in h2Metabolite-hits among different classes of lipids and organic acids. Furthermore, phosphatidylcholines with a high degree of unsaturation have higher h2Metabolite-hits estimates than phosphatidylcholines with low degrees of unsaturation. This study highlights the importance of common genetic variants for metabolite levels, and elucidates the genetic architecture of metabolite classes.

}, doi = {DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13770-6}, author = {Hagenbeek, Fiona A and Pool, Ren{\'e} and van Dongen, Jenny and Draisma, Harmen H M and Jan Hottenga, Jouke and Willemsen, Gonneke and Abdellaoui, Abdel and Fedko, Iryna O and den Braber, Anouk and Visser, Pieter Jelle and de Geus, Eco J C N and Willems van Dijk, Ko and Verhoeven, Aswin and Suchiman, H Eka and Beekman, Marian and Slagboom, P Eline and van Duijn, Cornelia M and BBMRI Metabolomics Consortium and Harms, Amy C and Hankemeier, Thomas and Bartels, Meike and Nivard, Michel G and Boomsma, Dorret I} }