Anna Hindes

Common variants in HSPB7 and FRMD4B associated with advanced heart failure

Background—Heart failure results from abnormalities in multiple biological processes that contribute to cardiac dysfunction. We tested the hypothesis that inherited variation in genes of known importance to cardiovascular biology would thus contribute to heart failure risk. Methods and Results—We used the ITMAT/Broad/CARe cardiovascular single-nucleotide polymorphism array to screen referral populations of patients with advanced heart failure for variants in ≈2000 genes of predicted importance to cardiovascular biology. Our design was a 2-stage case-control study. In stage 1, genotypes in Caucasian patients with heart failure (n=1590; ejection fraction, 32±16%) were compared with those in unaffected controls (n=577; ejection fraction, 67±8%) who were recruited from the same referral centers. Associations were tested for independent replication in stage 2 (308 cases and 2314 controls). Two intronic single-nucleotide polymorphisms showed replicated associations with all-cause heart failure as follows: rs1739843 in HSPB7 (combined P=3.09×10−6) and rs6787362 in FRMD4B (P=6.09×10−6). For both single-nucleotide polymorphisms, the minor allele was protective. In subgroup analyses, rs1739843 associated with both ischemic and nonischemic heart failure, whereas rs6787362 associated principally with ischemic heart failure. Linkage disequilibrium surrounding rs1739843 suggested that the causal variant resides in a region containing HSPB7 and a neighboring gene, CLCNKA, whereas the causal variant near rs6787362 is probably within FRMD4B. Allele frequencies for these single-nucleotide polymorphisms were substantially different in African Americans (635 cases and 714 controls) and showed no association with heart failure in this population. Conclusions—Our findings identify regions containing HSPB7 and FRMD4B as novel susceptibility loci for advanced heart failure. More broadly, in an era of genome-wide association studies, we demonstrate how knowledge of candidate genes can be leveraged as a complementary strategy to discern the genetics of complex disorders.

Cardiac signaling genes exhibit unexpected sequence diversity in sporadic cardiomyopathy, revealing HSPB7 polymorphisms associated with disease.

Sporadic heart failure is thought to have a genetic component, but the contributing genetic events are poorly defined. Here, we used ultra-high-throughput resequencing of pooled DNAs to identify SNPs in 4 biologically relevant cardiac signaling genes, and then examined the association between allelic variants and incidence of sporadic heart failure in 2 large Caucasian populations. Resequencing of DNA pools, each containing DNA from approximately 100 individuals, was rapid, accurate, and highly sensitive for identifying common and rare SNPs; it also had striking advantages in time and cost efficiencies over individual resequencing using conventional Sanger methods. In 2,606 individuals examined, we identified a total of 129 separate SNPs in the 4 cardiac signaling genes, including 23 nonsynonymous SNPs that we believe to be novel. Comparison of allele frequencies between 625 Caucasian nonaffected controls and 1,117 Caucasian individuals with systolic heart failure revealed 12 SNPs in the cardiovascular heat shock protein gene HSPB7 with greater proportional representation in the systolic heart failure group; all 12 SNPs were confirmed in an independent replication study. These SNPs were found to be in tight linkage disequilibrium, likely reflecting a single genetic event, but none altered amino acid sequence. These results establish the power and applicability of pooled resequencing for comparative SNP association analysis of target subgenomes in large populations and identify an association between multiple HSPB7 polymorphisms and heart failure.

Mutations in gfpt1 and skiv2l2 Cause Distinct Stage-Specific Defects in Larval Melanocyte Regeneration in Zebrafish

The establishment of a single cell type regeneration paradigm in the zebrafish provides an opportunity to investigate the genetic mechanisms specific to regeneration processes. We previously demonstrated that regeneration melanocytes arise from cell division of the otherwise quiescent melanocyte precursors following larval melanocyte ablation with a small molecule, MoTP. The ease of ablating melanocytes by MoTP allows us to conduct a forward genetic screen for mechanisms specific to regeneration from such precursors or stem cells. Here, we reported the identification of two mutants, eartha j23e1 and julie j24e1 from a melanocyte ablation screen. Both mutants develop normal larval melanocytes, but upon melanocyte ablation, each mutation results in a distinct stage-specific defect in melanocyte regeneration. Positional cloning reveals that the eartha j23e1 mutation is a nonsense mutation in gfpt1 (glutamine:fructose-6-phosphate aminotransferase 1), the rate-limiting enzyme in glucosamine-6-phosphate biosynthesis. Our analyses reveal that a mutation in gfpt1 specifically affects melanocyte differentiation (marked by melanin production) at a late stage during regeneration and that gfpt1 acts cell autonomously in melanocytes to promote ontogenetic melanocyte darkening. We identified that the julie j24e1 mutation is a splice-site mutation in skiv2l2 (superkiller viralicidic activity 2-like 2), a predicted DEAD-box RNA helicase. Our in situ analysis reveals that the mutation in skiv2l2 causes defects in cell proliferation, suggesting that skiv2l2 plays a role in regulating melanoblast proliferation during early stages of melanocyte regeneration. This finding is consistent with previously described role for cell division during larval melanocyte regeneration. The analyses of these mutants reveal their stage-specific roles in melanocyte regeneration. Interestingly, these mutants identify regeneration-specific functions not only in early stages of the regeneration process, but also in late stages of differentiation of the regenerating melanocyte. We suggest that mechanisms of regeneration identified in this mutant screen may reveal fundamental differences between the mechanisms that establish differentiated cells during embryogenesis, and those involved in larval or adult growth.

A gain of function mutation causing skeletal overgrowth in the rapunzel mutant

Mechanisms that regulate the growth and form of the vertebrate skeleton are largely unknown. The zebrafish mutant rapunzel has heterozygous defects in bone development, resulting in skeletal overgrowth, thus identification of the genetic lesion underlying rapunzel might provide insight into the molecular basis of skeletogenesis. In this report, we demonstrate that the rapunzel mutant results from a missense mutation in the previously uncharacterized rpz gene. This conclusion is supported by genetic mapping, identification of a missense mutation in rapunzel(c14) in a highly conserved region of the rpz gene, and suppression of the rapunzel homozygous embryonic phenotype with morpholino knockdown of rpz. In addition, rpz transcripts are identified in regions correlating with the homozygous embryonic phenotype (head, pectoral fin buds, somites and fin fold). This report provides the first gene identification for a mutation affecting segment number in the zebrafish fin and development of both the fin ray (dermal) and the axial skeleton.

Delayed skin wound repair in proline-rich protein tyrosine kinase 2 knockout mice

Proline-rich protein tyrosine kinase 2 (Pyk2) is a member of the focal adhesion kinase family. We used Pyk2 knockout (Pyk2-KO) mice to study the role of Pyk2 in cutaneous wound repair. We report that the rate of wound closure was delayed in Pyk2-KO compared with control mice. To examine whether impaired wound healing of Pyk2-KO mice was caused by a keratinocyte cell-autonomous defect, the capacities of primary keratinocytes from Pyk2-KO and wild-type (WT) littermates to heal scratch wounds in vitro were compared. The rate of scratch wound repair was decreased in Pyk2-KO keratinocytes compared with WT cells. Moreover, cultured human epidermal keratinocytes overexpressing the dominant-negative mutant of Pyk2 failed to heal scratch wounds. Conversely, stimulation of Pyk2-dependent signaling via WT Pyk2 overexpression induced accelerated scratch wound closure and was associated with increased expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1, MMP-9, and MMP-10. The Pyk2-stimulated increase in the rate of scratch wound repair was abolished by coexpression of the dominant-negative mutant of PKCδ and by GM-6001, a broad-spectrum inhibitor of MMP activity. These results suggest that Pyk2 is essential for skin wound reepithelialization in vivo and in vitro and that it regulates epidermal keratinocyte migration via a pathway that requires PKCδ and MMP functions.

Serum Response Factor Controls Transcriptional Network Regulating Epidermal Function and Hair Follicle Morphogenesis

Serum response factor (SRF) is a transcription factor that regulates the expression of growth-related immediate-early, cytoskeletal, and muscle-specific genes to control growth, differentiation, and cytoskeletal integrity in different cell types. To investigate the role for SRF in epidermal development and homeostasis, we conditionally knocked out SRF in epidermal keratinocytes. We report that SRF deletion disrupted epidermal barrier function leading to early postnatal lethality. Mice lacking SRF in epidermis displayed morphogenetic defects, including an eye-open-at-birth phenotype and lack of whiskers. SRF-null skin exhibited abnormal morphology, hyperplasia, aberrant expression of differentiation markers and transcriptional regulators, anomalous actin organization, enhanced inflammation, and retarded hair follicle (HF) development. Transcriptional profiling experiments uncovered profound molecular changes in SRF-null E17.5 epidermis and revealed that many previously identified SRF target CArG box-containing genes were markedly upregulated in SRF-null epidermis, indicating that SRF may function to repress transcription of a subset of its target genes in epidermis. Remarkably, when transplanted onto nude mice, engrafted SRF-null skin lacked hair but displayed normal epidermal architecture with proper expression of differentiation markers, suggesting that although keratinocyte SRF is essential for HF development, a cross-talk between SRF-null keratinocytes and the surrounding microenvironment is likely responsible for the barrier-deficient mutant epidermal phenotype.