Abstract
Introduction
Although DDH is one of the most common skeletal dysplasias (incidence 1.5 cases per 1000 births), it remains slow and costly to recruit large-scale patient cohorts for powerful genetic association studies. In this work we have successfully used the NJR as a platform to generate a DDH biobank of 907 individuals, upon which we have conducted the first ever genome-wide association study (GWAS) for DDH.
Methods
5411 patients recorded as having a hip replacement for ‘hip dysplasia’ between March 2003 and December 2013 were approached to participate in the study. Following filtering by questionnaire for non-DDH cases and non-European Caucasians, 907 patients returned a completed saliva sample. A randomly selected sample of individuals participating on the UK Household Longitudinal Study that had been previously genotyped using the same platform were used as controls at a case:control ratio of 1:4. A further data set consisting of 332 cases, 1375 controls and 26 variants was used to replicate the top signals.
Results
Of 256833 variants that passed QC, 11 variants reached genome-wide significance. All these variants came from the same signal, with rs143384 as the index SNP (allele A, allele frequency 0.60, OR [95% CI] 1.58[1.40–1.77], P=1.1×10−14). Twenty-six independent variants were prioritized to follow up through de novo replication. Variant rs143384 was found to be significantly associated with DDH after meta-analysing discovery and replication datasets (allele A, allele frequency 0.60, OR [95% CI] 1.50[1.36–1.66], P=2.81×10−16).
Discussion
Using eHR case-ascertainment and distance recruitment strategies we conducted the first GWAS for DDH and confirmed association of the GDF5 variant rs143384 with DDH (P=2.81×10−16). We establish the first genome-wide significant locus for DDH, discovered through linking EHRs with genomics as a proof of principle in enabling powerful genetic association studies of relatively rare but complex diseases.
