engleski

The catecholamine biosynthetic enzyme dopamine b-hydroxylase (DBH) : first genome-wide search positions trait-determining variants acting additively in the proximal promoter

Dopamine beta-hydroxylase (DBH) is the biosynthetic enzyme catalyzing formation of norepinephrine. Changes in DBH expression or activity have been implicated in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular and neuropsychiatric disorders. Genetic determination of DBH enzymatic activity and its secretion are only incompletely understood. We began with a genome-wide association search for loci contributing to DBH activity in human plasma. Initially, in a population sample of European ancestry, we identified the proximal DBH promoter as a region harboring 3 common trait-determining variants (top hit rs1611115, p=7.2 x 10-51). We confirmed their effects on transcription and showed that the 3 variants each acted additively on gene expression. Results were replicated in a second population sample of Native American descent (top hit rs1611115, p=4.1 x 10-15). A meta-analysis of these populations indicated that the DBH gene accounted for 57% of DBH trait variation. We further identified a genome-wide significant SNP at the LOC338797 locus on chromosome 12 as trans-QTL (rs4255618, p=4.62 x 10-8). Conditional analyses on DBH identified a third genomic region contributing to DBH variation: a likely cis-QTL adjacent to DBH in SARDH (rs7040170, p= 1.31x10-14) on chromosome 9q. We conclude that 3 common SNPs in the DBH promoter act additively to control phenotypic variation in DBH secretion, and that two additional novel loci (SARDH and LOC338797) may also contribute to the expression of this catecholamine biosynthetic trait.

Dopamine beta-hydroxylase; GWAS

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