Genome-wide significant association of ANKRD55 rs6859219 and multiple sclerosis risk
- Christina M Lill1,2,
- Brit-Maren M Schjeide1,
- Christiane Graetz1,2,
- Tian Liu3,
- Vincent Damotte4,
- Denis A Akkad5,
- Paul Blaschke6,
- Lisa-Ann Gerdes7,
- Antje Kroner8,9,
- Felix Luessi2,
- Isabelle Cournu-Rebeix4,10,
- Sabine Hoffjan5,
- Alexander Winkelmann6,
- Emmanuel Touze11,
- Fernando Pico12,
- Philippe Corcia13,
- David Otaegui14,
- Alfredo Antigüedad15,
- Antonio Alcina16,
- Manuel Comabella17,
- Xavier Montalban17,
- Javier Olascoaga18,
- Fuencisla Matesanz16,
- Thomas Dörner19,
- Shu-Chen Li3,20,
- Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen21,
- Ulman Lindenberger3,
- Andrew Chan22,
- Peter Rieckmann8,23,
- Hans-Peter Hartung24,
- Orhan Aktas24,
- Peter Lohse25,
- Mathias Buttmann8,
- Tania Kümpfel7,
- Christian Kubisch26,
- Uwe K Zettl6,
- Joerg T Epplen5,
- Bertrand Fontaine4,10,
- Frauke Zipp2,
- Koen Vandenbroeck27,28,
- Lars Bertram1
- 1Neuropsychiatric Genetics Group, Department of Vertebrate Genomics, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany
- 2Department of Neurology, Focus Program Translational Neuroscience, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany
- 3Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
- 4UPMC-INSERM-CNRS-UPMC-ICM, UMR 975–7225, Institut Cerveau Moelle Epinière (ICM), Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
- 5Department of Human Genetics, Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany
- 6Department of Neurology, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany
- 7Institute for Clinical Neuroimmunology, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany
- 8Department of Neurology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
- 9Centre for Research in Neuroscience at McGill University, Montreal, Canada
- 10Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Département de Neurologie, Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France
- 11Department of Neurology, Hôpital Sainte-Anne, Paris, France
- 12Department of Neurology, Centre Hospitalier de Versailles, Le Chesnay, France
- 13Department of Neurology, Centre Hospitalier Regional Universitaire, Tours, France
- 14Área de Neurociencias, Inst. Investigación Sanitaria Biodonostia, San Sebastián, Spain
- 15Servicio de Neurología, Hospital de Basurto, Bilbao, Spain
- 16Department of Biología Celular e Inmunología, Instituto de Parasitología y Biomedicina ‘LópezNeyra’ (IPBLN), CSIC, Granada, Spain
- 17Centre d'Esclerosi Múltiple de Catalunya, CEMCat, Unitat de Neuroimmunologia Clínica, Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Barcelona, Spain
- 18Servicio de Neurología, Unidad de Esclerosis Múltiple, Hospital Donostia, San Sebastián, Spain
- 19Department of Medicine, Rheumatology, and Clinical Immunology & DRFZ, Charité University Medicine, Berlin, Germany
- 20Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
- 21Interdisciplinary Metabolic Center, Lipids Clinic, Charité University Medicine, Berlin, Germany
- 22Department of Neurology, St. Josef-Hospital, Ruhr-University, Bochum, Germany
- 23Department of Neurology, Sozialstiftung Bamberg Hospital, Bamberg, Germany
- 24Department of Neurology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany
- 25Department of Clinical Chemistry, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany
- 26Institute of Human Genetics, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany
- 27Neurogenomiks Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain
- 28IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain
- Correspondence to Dr Christina M Lill, Neuropsychiatric Genetics Group, Department of Vertebrate Genomics, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestr. 63-73, 14195 Berlin, Germany; lill{at}molgen.mpg.de
- Received 9 November 2012
- Revised 10 December 2012
- Accepted 12 December 2012
- Published Online First 12 January 2013
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a genetically complex disease that shares a substantial proportion of risk loci with other autoimmune diseases.1 Along these lines, ANKRD55, originally implicated in rheumatoid arthritis, was recently reported as a potential novel MS risk gene (rs6859219, p=1.9×10−7).2 Here, we comprehensively validated this effect in independent datasets comprising 8846 newly genotyped subjects from Germany and France as well as 5003 subjects from two genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Upon meta-analysis of all available data (19 686 subjects), ANKRD55 rs6859219 now shows compelling evidence for association with MS at genome-wide significance (OR=1.19, p=3.1×10−11). Our study adds ANKRD55 to the list of established MS risk loci and extends previous evidence suggesting an overlapping genetic foundation across autoimmune diseases.
Ankyrin repeats are abundant in a large number of different proteins in humans and mediate protein–protein interactions. DNA-sequence variants in ankyrin repeat domain-containing proteins have been linked to a wide range of diseases; for example, KRIT1 mutations causative for cerebral cavernous malformations,3 NOTCH3 mutations in cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy, and RFXANK mutations in the bare lymphocyte syndrome.4 ANKRD55 (located on chromosome 5q11.2) encodes the ‘ankyrin repeat domain-containing protein 55’ the function of which is currently unknown. Single nucleotide polymorphism rs6859219 in ANKRD55 was implicated in a recent GWAS meta-analysis on rheumatoid arthritis.5 Furthermore, a joint analysis of datasets on rheumatoid arthritis and coeliac disease also indicated a role of ANKRD55 in the latter.6 Given the augmenting evidence suggesting an overlap in the genetic architecture of autoimmune diseases including MS, we have previously investigated 10 ‘autoimmune loci’ in 2895 Spanish MS cases and 2942 controls.2 In that study, rs6859219 emerged as a putative new MS locus albeit at subgenome-wide significance (p=1.9×10−7).2 Our failure to establish …
