Nat Genet. 2013 Mar 17. doi: 10.1038/ng.2581. [Epub ahead of print]

Genome-wide association analysis identifies a susceptibility locus for pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Germain M, Eyries M, Montani D, Poirier O, Girerd B, Dorfmüller P, Coulet F, Nadaud S, Maugenre S, Guignabert C, Carpentier W, Vonk-Noordegraaf A, Lévy M, Chaouat A, Lambert JC, Bertrand M, Dupuy AM, Letenneur L, Lathrop M, Amouyel P, de Ravel TJ, Delcroix M, Austin ED, Robbins IM, Hemnes AR, Loyd JE, Berman-Rosenzweig E, Barst RJ, Chung WK, Simonneau G, Trégouët DA, Humbert M, Soubrier F.

Unité Mixte de Recherche en Santé (UMRS) 937, Université Pierre & Marie Curie (UPMC) Université Paris 6 and Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), Paris, France.
Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire (IHU) Cardiométabolisme et Nutrition (ICAN), Paris, France.

Abstract

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare, severe disease resulting from progressive obliteration of small-caliber pulmonary arteries by proliferating vascular cells. PAH can occur without recognized etiology (idiopathic PAH), be associated with a systemic disease or occur as a heritable form, with BMPR2 mutated in approximately 80% of familial and 15% of idiopathic PAH cases. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) based on 2 independent case-control studies for idiopathic and familial PAH (without BMPR2 mutations), including a total of 625 cases and 1,525 healthy individuals. We detected a significant association at the CBLN2 locus mapping to 18q22.3, with the risk allele conferring an odds ratio for PAH of 1.97 (1.59-2.45; P = 7.47 × 10-10). CBLN2 is expressed in the lung, and its expression is higher in explanted lungs from individuals with PAH and in endothelial cells cultured from explanted PAH lungs.

PMID:23502781