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Genome-wide association study does not reveal major genetic determinants for anti-cytomegalovirus antibody response

Genes & Immunity volume 13, pages 184–190 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) causes an infection, which is followed by a lifelong latency. CMV has received much attention in clinical studies, but little is known about the genetic basis of this common infection. To identify genetic polymorphisms associated with the susceptibility to and strength of anti-CMV immunoglobulin G (IgG) response to CMV infection, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) using an Illumina BeadChip containing 670 000 probes and participants from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study, including 1486 anti-CMV IgG seropositive and 648 seronegative individuals. Statistical analyses were performed using logistic (for susceptibility) and linear regression (for strength of antibody response). None of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) was found to be associated with susceptibility to CMV infection at the level of genome-wide significance (P<5 × 10−8). Also, none of the association signals identified reached genome-wide levels of statistical significance in the study of the strength of the antibody response to CMV although five SNPs in AGBL1 gene region displayed a suggestive association (lowest P-value=1.86 × 10−6). The results indicate that there is no strong evidence of major host genetic factors involved in either susceptibility to or the strength of antibody response to human CMV infection.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from the Academy of Finland (grant number 132704) and the Competitive Research Funding of the Tampere University Hospital (grant numbers 9M017, 9L054, 9M048). The Young Finns Study has been financially supported by the Academy of Finland (grant numbers 117797, 126925, 121584, 124282 and 117941), the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, the Turku University Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, the Paavo Nurmi Foundation, the Medical Research Fund of Turku, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the University Central Hospital Medical Fund, the Juho Vainio Foundation, the Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research and Tampere Tuberculosis Foundation.

We thank Irina Lisinen, Ville Aalto, Nina Peltonen, Sinikka Repo-Koskinen and Maritta Virtanen for their skillful technical assistance.

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Author notes

  1. T Lehtimäki and M Hurme: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

    T Kuparinen, J Jylhävä, S Marttila & M Hurme

  2. Department of Clinical Chemistry, Tampere University Hospital and University of Tampere, School of Medicine, Tampere, Finland

    I Seppälä & T Lehtimäki

  3. Department of Clinical Microbiology, Centre for Laboratory Medicine, Tampere, Finland

    J Aittoniemi & M Hurme

  4. FIMM, Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland, Helsinki, Finland

    J Kettunen

  5. Department of Medicine, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland

    J Viikari

  6. Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital and University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

    M Kähönen

  7. Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland

    O Raitakari

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Kuparinen, T., Seppälä, I., Jylhävä, J. et al. Genome-wide association study does not reveal major genetic determinants for anti-cytomegalovirus antibody response. Genes Immun 13, 184–190 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/gene.2011.71

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