Large scale phenotype imputation and in vivo functional validation implicate ADAMTS14 as an adiposity gene

Katherine A Kentistou, Jian'an Luan, Laura B L Wittemans, Catherine Hambly, Lucija Klaric, Zoltán Kutalik, John R Speakman, Nicholas J Wareham, Timothy J Kendall, Claudia Langenberg, James F Wilson, Peter K Joshi, Nicholas M Morton* (Corresponding Author)

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Obesity remains an unmet global health burden. Detrimental anatomical distribution of body fat is a major driver of obesity-mediated mortality risk and is demonstrably heritable. However, our understanding of the full genetic contribution to human adiposity is incomplete, as few studies measure adiposity directly. To address this, we impute whole-body imaging adiposity phenotypes in UK Biobank from the 4,366 directly measured participants onto the rest of the cohort, greatly increasing our discovery power. Using these imputed phenotypes in 392,535 participants yielded hundreds of genome-wide significant associations, six of which replicate in independent cohorts. The leading causal gene candidate, ADAMTS14, is further investigated in a mouse knockout model. Concordant with the human association data, the Adamts14 -/- mice exhibit reduced adiposity and weight-gain under obesogenic conditions, alongside an improved metabolic rate and health. Thus, we show that phenotypic imputation at scale offers deeper biological insights into the genetics of human adiposity that could lead to therapeutic targets.

Original languageEnglish
Article number307
Number of pages12
JournalNature Communications
Volume14
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 19 Jan 2023

Bibliographical note

K.A.K. acknowledges funding from the MRC Doctoral Training Programme in Precision Medicine (MR/N013166/1). L.K. was supported by an RCUK Innovation Fellowship from the National Productivity Investment Fund (MR/R026408/1). Z.K. was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (310030-189147). J.F.W. acknowledges funding from the MRC Human Genetics Unit programme grant Quantitative Traits in Health and Disease (U. MC_UU_00007/10). N.M.M. was supported by a Wellcome Trust New Investigator Award (100981/Z/13/Z). We kindly thank Alain Colige and colleagues at the University of Liege for the provision of Adamts14+/– mouse sperm. We would also like to thank the researchers, funders and participants of all the contributing cohorts. Specifically, we thank the UK Biobank Resource, approved under application 19655. ORCADES was supported by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government (CZB/4/276, CZB/4/710), the Royal Society, the MRC Human Genetics Unit, Arthritis Research UK and the European Union framework program 6 EUROSPAN project (contract no. LSHG-CT-2006-018947). DNA extractions were performed at the Clinical Research Facility in Edinburgh. We would like to acknowledge the invaluable contributions of the research nurses in Orkney, the administrative team in Edinburgh and the people of Orkney. The EPIC-Norfolk study (https://doi.org/10.22025/2019.10.105.00004) has received funding from the Medical Research Council (MR/N003284/1 and MC-UU_12015/1) and Cancer Research UK (C864/A14136). The genetics work in the EPIC-Norfolk study was funded by the Medical Research Council (MC_PC_13048). We are grateful to all the participants who have been part of the project and to the many members of the study teams at the University of Cambridge who have enabled this research. The Fenland Study (10.22025/2017.10.101.00001) is funded by the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12015/1). We are grateful to all the volunteers and to the General Practitioners and practice staff for assistance with recruitment. We thank the Fenland Study Investigators, Fenland Study Co-ordination team and the Epidemiology Field, Data and Laboratory teams. We further acknowledge support for genomics from the Medical Research Council (MC_PC_13046).

Keywords

  • Animals
  • Humans
  • Mice
  • ADAMTS Proteins/genetics
  • Adiposity/genetics
  • Body Mass Index
  • Genome
  • Obesity/genetics
  • Phenotype
  • Weight Gain/genetics
  • Mice, Knockout

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