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Two new susceptibility loci for Kawasaki disease identified through genome-wide association analysis

Nature Genetics volume 44, pages 522–525 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

To find new candidate loci predisposing individuals to Kawasaki disease, an acute vasculitis that affects children, we conducted a genome-wide association study in 622 individuals with Kawasaki disease (cases) and 1,107 controls in a Han Chinese population residing in Taiwan, with replication in an independent Han Chinese sample of 261 cases and 550 controls. We report two new loci, one at BLK (encoding B-lymphoid tyrosine kinase) and one at CD40, that are associated with Kawasaki disease at genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10−8). Our findings may lead to a better understanding of the role of immune activation and inflammation in Kawasaki disease pathogenesis.

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Figure 1: Results of genome-wide association analysis (−log10 P) shown in chromosomal order for 716,935 SNPs tested for association in initial sample of 622 Kawasaki disease cases and 1,107 controls.
Figure 2: Association plots for the BLK and CD40 regions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all affected individuals and their families who devoted their time and effort to participate in this study. We gratefully acknowledge the members of the Translational Resource Center (TRC) (NSC100-2325-B-001-023) for Genomic Medicine and the National Center for Genome Medicine (NCGM) (NSC100-2319-B-001-001) at Academia Sinica for their support in subject recruitment, genotyping and statistical analysis. We especially thank H. Lue for his inspirational discussion. This study was supported by the Academia Sinica Genomic Medicine Multicenter Study, Taiwan (40-05-GMM). The funders had no role in study design, data collection or analysis, the decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Taiwan Pediatric ID Alliance and Fuu-Jen Tsai: A complete list of members and affiliations appears in the Supplementary Note.

  2. Yi-Ching Lee, Ho-Chang Kuo, Jeng-Sheng Chang and Luan-Yin Chang: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

    Yi-Ching Lee, Li-Ching Chang, Yi-Min Liu, Ying-Ju Chen, Chien-Hsiun Chen, Yuan-Tsong Chen & Jer-Yuarn Wu

  2. Institute of Molecular Medicine, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

    Yi-Ching Lee

  3. Department of Pediatrics, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

    Ho-Chang Kuo, Chi-Di Liang & Kao-Pin Hwang

  4. Graduate Institute of Clinical Medical Science, Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

    Ho-Chang Kuo & Chi-Di Liang

  5. Department of Pediatrics, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

    Jeng-Sheng Chang

  6. Department of Pediatrics, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

    Luan-Yin Chang & Li-Min Huang

  7. Department of Pediatrics, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

    Ming-Ren Chen, Hsin Chi, Fu-Yuan Huang & Nan-Chang Chiu

  8. Department of Pediatrics and Divisions of Pediatric Cardiology, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua, Taiwan

    Meng-Luen Lee

  9. Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital at Linkou, Taoyuan, Taiwan

    Yhu-Chering Huang

  10. College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan

    Yhu-Chering Huang

  11. Department of Pediatrics, Taipei City Hospital, Zhongxiao Branch, Taipei, Taiwan

    Betau Hwang

  12. Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

    Kao-Pin Hwang

  13. School of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Kao-Pin Hwang, Chien-Hsiun Chen, Fuu-Jen Tsai & Jer-Yuarn Wu

  14. Department of Pediatrics, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

    Pi-Chang Lee

  15. Department of Pediatrics, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA

    Yuan-Tsong Chen

  16. Department of Medical Genetics, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

    Fuu-Jen Tsai

  17. Department of Health and Nutrition Biotechnology, Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Fuu-Jen Tsai

Authors
  1. Yi-Ching Lee
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Contributions

Y.-T.C., F.-J.T. and J.-Y.W. are the principal investigators who conceived and obtained funding for this project. Y.-C.L., C.-H.C. and J.-Y.W. organized and supervised the GWAS and replication genotyping pipeline and devised the overall analysis plan. Y.-C.L. wrote the first draft of the manuscript with input from C.-H.C. and J.-Y.W. Y.-C.L., L.-C.C. and C.-H.C. analyzed the data. C.-D.L., J.-S.C., L.-Y.C., L.-M.H., M.-R.C., H.-C.K., H.C., F.-Y.H., M.-L.L., Y.-C.H., B.H., N.-C.C., K.-P.H., P.-C.L., Y.-M.L., Y.-J.C. and the Taiwan Pediatric ID Alliance coordinated and contributed subject and database phenotype collections.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yuan-Tsong Chen, Fuu-Jen Tsai or Jer-Yuarn Wu.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

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Supplementary Note, Supplementary Figures 1–5 and Supplementary Tables 1–9 (PDF 1847 kb)

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Lee, YC., Kuo, HC., Chang, JS. et al. Two new susceptibility loci for Kawasaki disease identified through genome-wide association analysis. Nat Genet 44, 522–525 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2227

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