Genome-wide association study of Tourettes syndrome
Abstract: Tourettes syndrome (TS) is a developmental disorder that has one of the highest familial recurrence rates among neuropsychiatric diseases with complex inheritance. However, the identification of definitive TS susceptibility genes remains elusive. Here, we report the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) of TS in 1285 cases and 4964 ancestry-matched controls of European ancestry, including two European-derived population isolates, Ashkenazi Jews from North America and Israel and French Canadians from Quebec, Canada. In a primary meta-analysis of GWAS data from these European ancestry samples, no markers achieved a genome-wide threshold of significance (P5 × 10(-8)); the top signal was found in rs7868992 on chromosome 9q32 within COL27A1 (P=1.85 × 10(-6)). A secondary analysis including an additional 211 cases and 285 controls from two closely related Latin American population isolates from the Central Valley of Costa Rica and Antioquia, Colombia also identified rs7868992 as the top signal (P=3.6 × 10(-7) for the combined sample of 1496 cases and 5249 controls following imputation with 1000 Genomes data). This study lays the groundwork for the eventual identification of common TS susceptibility variants in larger cohorts and helps to provide a more complete understanding of the full genetic architecture of this disorder.Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication, 14 August 2012; doi:10.1038/mp.2012.69.

Scharf JM,

Yu D,

Mathews CA,

Neale BM,

Stewart SE,

Fagerness JA,

Evans P,

Gamazon E,

Edlund CK,

Service SK,

Tikhomirov A,

Osiecki L,

Illmann C,

Pluzhnikov A,

Konkashbaev A,

Davis LK,

Han B,

Crane J,

Moorjani P,

Crenshaw AT,

Parkin MA,

Reus VI,

Lowe TL,

Rangel-Lugo M,

Chouinard S,

Dion Y,

Girard S,

Cath DC,

Smit JH,

King RA,

Fernandez TV,

Leckman JF,

Kidd KK,

Kidd JR,

Pakstis AJ,

State MW,

Herrera LD,

Romero R,

Fournier E,

Sandor P,

Barr CL,

Phan N,

Gross-Tsur V,

Benarroch F,

Pollak Y,

Budman CL,

Bruun RD,

Erenberg G,

Naarden AL,

Lee PC,

Weiss N,

Kremeyer B,

Berrio GB,

Campbell DD,

Cardona Silgado JC,

Ochoa WC,

Mesa Restrepo SC,

Muller H,

Valencia Duarte AV,

Lyon GJ,

Leppert M,

Morgan J,

Weiss R,

Grados MA,

Anderson K,

Davarya S,

Singer H,

Walkup J,

Jankovic J,

Tischfield JA,

Heiman GA,

Gilbert DL,

Hoekstra PJ,

Robertson MM,

Kurlan R,

Liu C,

Gibbs JR,

Singleton A,

Hardy J,

Strengman E,

Ophoff RA,

Wagner M,

Moessner R,

Mirel DB,

Posthuma D,

Sabatti C,

Eskin E,

Conti DV,

Knowles JA,

Ruiz-Linares A,

Rouleau GA,

Purcell S,

Heutink P,

Oostra BA,

McMahon WM,

Freimer NB,

Cox NJ,

Pauls DL

Mol Psychiatry

  18 (6): 1844-1853; Sep 2013

[Abstract]

[DOI]

Cardiac resident nestin+ cells participate in reparative vascularisation
Abstract: The rodent heart contains a population of nestin(+) cells derived from the embryonic neural crest and migrate to the scar after myocardial infarction (MI). The present study tested the hypothesis that intron 2 of the nestin gene drives expression and a subpopulation of nestin(+) cells participate in reparative vascularisation. The directed expression of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) by the second intron of the nestin gene identified GFP/nestin(+) cells intercalated among ventricular myocytes in the heart of normal transgenic mice. Ischemic injury led to the migration of GFP(+) cells to the scar and a subpopulation was detected in CD31/nestin(+) endothelial cells of newly formed blood vessels. The direct contribution to reparative vascularisation provided the impetus to test the hypothesis that increasing the population of nestin(+) cells in the infarcted heart will improve scar healing. Skin-derived cells isolated from E18 Sprague-Dawley rats grew as spheres, expressed nestin, sox2, neural crest-related transcriptional genes and a panel of peptide growth factors. Skin-derived cells transplanted in the non-infarcted left ventricle of 3-day post-MI rats migrated to the peri-infarct/infarct region and remained engrafted for 21 days. A significantly smaller infarct, increased number of small calibre blood vessels and improved ventricular function were observed in engrafted infarcted rat hearts. Thus, the second intron of the nestin gene drives expression in the mouse heart and a subpopulation of GFP/nestin(+) cells directly participate in reparative vascularisation. Increasing the population of nestin(+) cells via the transplantation of skin-derived cells represents a potential approach to limit ischemic damage to the heart. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

El-Helou V,

Chabot A,

Gosselin H,

Villeneuve L,

Clavet-Lanthier ME,

Tanguay JF,

Enikolopov G,

Fernandes KJ,

Jasmin JF,

Calderone A

Journal of Cellular Physiology

  228 (9): 1844-1853; Sep 2013

[Abstract]

[DOI]