A meta-analysis of gene expression signatures of blood pressure and hypertension

Tianxiao Huan, Tõnu Esko, Marjolein J Peters, Luke C Pilling, Katharina Schramm, Claudia Schurmann, Brian H Chen, Chunyu Liu, Roby Joehanes, Andrew D Johnson, Chen Yao, Sai-Xia Ying, Paul Courchesne, Lili Milani, Nalini Raghavachari, Richard Wang, Poching Liu, Eva Reinmaa, Abbas Dehghan, Albert Hofman, André G Uitterlinden, Dena G Hernandez, Stefania Bandinelli, Andrew Singleton, David Melzer, Andres Metspalu, Maren Carstensen, Harald Grallert, Christian Herder, Thomas Meitinger, Annette Peters, Michael Roden, Melanie Waldenberger, Marcus Dörr, Stephan B Felix, Tanja Zeller, International Consortium for Blood Pressure GWAS (ICBP), Ramachandran Vasan, Christopher J O'Donnell, Peter J Munson, Xia Yang, Holger Prokisch, Uwe Völker, Joyce B J van Meurs, Luigi Ferrucci, Daniel Levy, Tianxiao Huan, Tõnu Esko, Marjolein J Peters, Luke C Pilling, Katharina Schramm, Claudia Schurmann, Brian H Chen, Chunyu Liu, Roby Joehanes, Andrew D Johnson, Chen Yao, Sai-Xia Ying, Paul Courchesne, Lili Milani, Nalini Raghavachari, Richard Wang, Poching Liu, Eva Reinmaa, Abbas Dehghan, Albert Hofman, André G Uitterlinden, Dena G Hernandez, Stefania Bandinelli, Andrew Singleton, David Melzer, Andres Metspalu, Maren Carstensen, Harald Grallert, Christian Herder, Thomas Meitinger, Annette Peters, Michael Roden, Melanie Waldenberger, Marcus Dörr, Stephan B Felix, Tanja Zeller, International Consortium for Blood Pressure GWAS (ICBP), Ramachandran Vasan, Christopher J O'Donnell, Peter J Munson, Xia Yang, Holger Prokisch, Uwe Völker, Joyce B J van Meurs, Luigi Ferrucci, Daniel Levy

Abstract

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have uncovered numerous genetic variants (SNPs) that are associated with blood pressure (BP). Genetic variants may lead to BP changes by acting on intermediate molecular phenotypes such as coded protein sequence or gene expression, which in turn affect BP variability. Therefore, characterizing genes whose expression is associated with BP may reveal cellular processes involved in BP regulation and uncover how transcripts mediate genetic and environmental effects on BP variability. A meta-analysis of results from six studies of global gene expression profiles of BP and hypertension in whole blood was performed in 7017 individuals who were not receiving antihypertensive drug treatment. We identified 34 genes that were differentially expressed in relation to BP (Bonferroni-corrected p<0.05). Among these genes, FOS and PTGS2 have been previously reported to be involved in BP-related processes; the others are novel. The top BP signature genes in aggregate explain 5%-9% of inter-individual variance in BP. Of note, rs3184504 in SH2B3, which was also reported in GWAS to be associated with BP, was found to be a trans regulator of the expression of 6 of the transcripts we found to be associated with BP (FOS, MYADM, PP1R15A, TAGAP, S100A10, and FGBP2). Gene set enrichment analysis suggested that the BP-related global gene expression changes include genes involved in inflammatory response and apoptosis pathways. Our study provides new insights into molecular mechanisms underlying BP regulation, and suggests novel transcriptomic markers for the treatment and prevention of hypertension.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1. Effect size of differentially expressed…
Fig 1. Effect size of differentially expressed BP genes in the Framingham Heart Study and the Illumina cohorts.
A) SBP; B) DBP; C) HTN. The x-axis is the effect size of the differentially expressed genes in the FHS cohort and the y-axis is the effect size in the Illumina cohorts. The BP signature genes identified both in the FHS and the Illumina cohorts at p<0.05 (Bonferroni corrected) are highlighted. pi1 values indicate the proportion of significant signals among the tested associations [11] (See details in the Methods section).
Fig 2. Global view of BP eQTLs…
Fig 2. Global view of BP eQTLs effects on differentially expressed BP signature genes.
A) 2-Dimensional plot of in whole blood eQTLs vs. transcript position genome wide. eQTL-transcript pairs at FDRp values in ICBP GWAS [3]. Color coding indicates the strength (measured by r2) of LD of each SNP with the top SNP (rs3184504). Five master trans-eQTLs (also BP GWAS SNPs) for BP signature genes are labeled in the figure. This figure was drawn by LocusZoom [32].

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