TY - JOUR
T1 - Telomere length analysis in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis using large-scale whole genome sequence data
AU - Al Khleifat, Ahmad
AU - Iacoangeli, Alfredo
AU - Jones, Ashley R.
AU - van Vugt, Joke J.F.A.
AU - Moisse, Matthieu
AU - Shatunov, Aleksey
AU - Zwamborn, Ramona A.J.
AU - van der Spek, Rick A.A.
AU - Cooper-Knock, Johnathan
AU - Topp, Simon
AU - van Rheenen, Wouter
AU - Kenna, Brendan
AU - Van Eijk, Kristel R.
AU - Kenna, Kevin
AU - Byrne, Ross
AU - López, Victoria
AU - Opie-Martin, Sarah
AU - Vural, Atay
AU - Campos, Yolanda
AU - Weber, Markus
AU - Smith, Bradley
AU - Fogh, Isabella
AU - Silani, Vincenzo
AU - Morrison, Karen E.
AU - Dobson, Richard
AU - van Es, Michael A.
AU - McLaughlin, Russell L.
AU - Vourc’h, Patrick
AU - Chio, Adriano
AU - Corcia, Philippe
AU - de Carvalho, Mamede
AU - Gotkine, Marc
AU - Panades, Monica Povedano
AU - Mora, Jesus S.
AU - Shaw, Pamela J.
AU - Landers, John E.
AU - Glass, Jonathan D.
AU - Shaw, Christopher E.
AU - Basak, Nazli
AU - Hardiman, Orla
AU - Robberecht, Wim
AU - Van Damme, Philip
AU - van den Berg, Leonard H.
AU - Veldink, Jan H.
AU - Al-Chalabi, Ammar
N1 - Funding Information:
AA-C was a consultant for Mitsubishi-Tanabe Pharma, GSK, and Chronos Therapeutics, and chief investigator for clinical trials for Cytokinetics and OrionPharma. JvV reports to have sponsored research agreements with Biogen. VS was a consultant for Novartis and Biogen. LB reports grants from Netherlands ALS Foundation, grants from Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (Vici Scheme), grants from The European Community’s Health Seventh Framework Programme [grant agreement no. 259867 (EuroMOTOR)], grants from Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development) the STRENGTH project, funded through the EU Joint Programme—Neurodegenerative Disease Research, JPND), during the conduct of the study; personal fees from Calico, personal fees from Cytokinetics, grants and personal fees from Takeda, non-financial support from Orion, non-financial support from Orphazyme, outside the submitted work. AA-C also serves on scientific advisory boards for Mitsubishi Tanabe, Roche, Denali Pharma, Cytokinetics, Lilly, and Amylyx research. CS reports grants from Avexis, grants from Eli Lilly, grants from Chronos Therapeutics, grants from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, during the conduct of the study; grants from QurAlis, grants from Chronos Therapeutics, grants from Biogen, outside the submitted work. JL was a member of the scientific advisory board for Cerevel Therapeutics, a consultant for ACI Clinical LLC sponsored by Biogen, Inc. or Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. JL was also a consultant for Perkins Coie LLP and may provide expert testimony and also supported by funding from NIH/NINDS (R01NS073873 and R56NS073873). The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Funding Information:
Samples used in this research were in part obtained from the UK National DNA Bank for MND Research, funded by the MND Association and the Wellcome Trust. We thank people with MND and their families for their participation in this project. We acknowledge sample management undertaken by Biobanking Solutions funded by the Medical Research Council at the Centre for Integrated Genomic Medical Research, University of Manchester. The authors acknowledge use of the research computing facility at King’s College London, Rosalind ( https://rosalind.kcl.ac.uk ), which is delivered in partnership with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centres at South London and Maudsley and Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trusts, and part-funded by capital equipment grants from the Maudsley Charity (award 980) and Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Charity (TR130505). We also acknowledge Health Data Research UK, which is funded by the UK Medical Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, Department of Health and Social Care (United Kingdom), Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates, Health and Social Care Research and Development Division (Welsh Government), Public Health Agency (Northern Ireland), British Heart Foundation and Wellcome Trust.
Funding Information:
AAK was funded by ALS Association Milton Safenowitz Research Fellowship (grant number 22-PDF-609. doi: 10.52546/pc.gr.150909 ), The Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) Fellowship (Al Khleifat/Oct21/975-799), The Darby Rimmer Foundation, and The NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre. This project was also funded by the MND Association and the Wellcome Trust. This is an EU Joint Programme-Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) project. The project is supported through the following funding organizations under the aegis of JPND– www.jpnd.eu [United Kingdom, Medical Research Council (MR/L501529/1 and MR/R024804/1) and Economic and Social Research Council (ES/L008238/1)]. AA-C was a NIHR Senior Investigator. CS and AA-C received salary support from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Dementia Biomedical Research Unit at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. The work leading up to this publication was funded by the European Community’s Health Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007–2013; grant agreement number 259867) and Horizon 2020 Program (H2020-PHC-2014-two-stage; grant agreement number 633413). This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement no. 772376–EScORIAL. The collaboration project was co-funded by the PPP Allowance made available by Health∼Holland, Top Sector Life Sciences and Health, to stimulate public-private partnerships. Project MinE Belgium was supported by a grant from IWT, the Belgian ALS Liga and a grant from Opening the Future Fund (KU Leuven). PVD holds a senior clinical investigatorship of FWO-Vlaanderen and was supported by E. von Behring Chair for Neuromuscular and Neurodegenerative Disorders, the ALS Liga België and the KU Leuven funds “Een Hart voor ALS,” “Laeversfonds voor ALS Onderzoek,” and the “Valéry Perrier Race against ALS Fund”. RM was supported by Science Foundation Ireland (17/CDA/4737). MinE USA was funded by the US ALS Association.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Al Khleifat, Iacoangeli, Jones, van Vugt, Moisse, Shatunov, Zwamborn, van der Spek, Cooper-Knock, Topp, van Rheenen, Kenna, Van Eijk, Kenna, Byrne, López, Opie-Martin, Vural, Campos, Weber, Smith, Fogh, Silani, Morrison, Dobson, van Es, McLaughlin, Vourc’h, Chio, Corcia, de Carvalho, Gotkine, Panades, Mora, Shaw, Landers, Glass, Shaw, Basak, Hardiman, Robberecht, Van Damme, van den Berg, Veldink and Al-Chalabi.
PY - 2022/12/15
Y1 - 2022/12/15
N2 - Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by the loss of upper and lower motor neurons, leading to progressive weakness of voluntary muscles, with death following from neuromuscular respiratory failure, typically within 3 to 5 years. There is a strong genetic contribution to ALS risk. In 10% or more, a family history of ALS or frontotemporal dementia is obtained, and the Mendelian genes responsible for ALS in such families have now been identified in about 50% of cases. Only about 14% of apparently sporadic ALS is explained by known genetic variation, suggesting that other forms of genetic variation are important. Telomeres maintain DNA integrity during cellular replication, differ between sexes, and shorten naturally with age. Sex and age are risk factors for ALS and we therefore investigated telomere length in ALS. Methods: Samples were from Project MinE, an international ALS whole genome sequencing consortium that includes phenotype data. For validation we used donated brain samples from motor cortex from people with ALS and controls. Ancestry and relatedness were evaluated by principal components analysis and relationship matrices of DNA microarray data. Whole genome sequence data were from Illumina HiSeq platforms and aligned using the Isaac pipeline. TelSeq was used to quantify telomere length using whole genome sequence data. We tested the association of telomere length with ALS and ALS survival using Cox regression. Results: There were 6,580 whole genome sequences, reducing to 6,195 samples (4,315 from people with ALS and 1,880 controls) after quality control, and 159 brain samples (106 ALS, 53 controls). Accounting for age and sex, there was a 20% (95% CI 14%, 25%) increase of telomere length in people with ALS compared to controls (p = 1.1 × 10−12), validated in the brain samples (p = 0.03). Those with shorter telomeres had a 10% increase in median survival (p = 5.0×10−7). Although there was no difference in telomere length between sporadic ALS and familial ALS (p=0.64), telomere length in 334 people with ALS due to expanded C9orf72 repeats was shorter than in those without expanded C9orf72 repeats (p = 5.0×10−4). Discussion: Although telomeres shorten with age, longer telomeres are a risk factor for ALS and worsen prognosis. Longer telomeres are associated with ALS.
AB - Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by the loss of upper and lower motor neurons, leading to progressive weakness of voluntary muscles, with death following from neuromuscular respiratory failure, typically within 3 to 5 years. There is a strong genetic contribution to ALS risk. In 10% or more, a family history of ALS or frontotemporal dementia is obtained, and the Mendelian genes responsible for ALS in such families have now been identified in about 50% of cases. Only about 14% of apparently sporadic ALS is explained by known genetic variation, suggesting that other forms of genetic variation are important. Telomeres maintain DNA integrity during cellular replication, differ between sexes, and shorten naturally with age. Sex and age are risk factors for ALS and we therefore investigated telomere length in ALS. Methods: Samples were from Project MinE, an international ALS whole genome sequencing consortium that includes phenotype data. For validation we used donated brain samples from motor cortex from people with ALS and controls. Ancestry and relatedness were evaluated by principal components analysis and relationship matrices of DNA microarray data. Whole genome sequence data were from Illumina HiSeq platforms and aligned using the Isaac pipeline. TelSeq was used to quantify telomere length using whole genome sequence data. We tested the association of telomere length with ALS and ALS survival using Cox regression. Results: There were 6,580 whole genome sequences, reducing to 6,195 samples (4,315 from people with ALS and 1,880 controls) after quality control, and 159 brain samples (106 ALS, 53 controls). Accounting for age and sex, there was a 20% (95% CI 14%, 25%) increase of telomere length in people with ALS compared to controls (p = 1.1 × 10−12), validated in the brain samples (p = 0.03). Those with shorter telomeres had a 10% increase in median survival (p = 5.0×10−7). Although there was no difference in telomere length between sporadic ALS and familial ALS (p=0.64), telomere length in 334 people with ALS due to expanded C9orf72 repeats was shorter than in those without expanded C9orf72 repeats (p = 5.0×10−4). Discussion: Although telomeres shorten with age, longer telomeres are a risk factor for ALS and worsen prognosis. Longer telomeres are associated with ALS.
KW - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
KW - bigdata
KW - genomics
KW - MND–motor neuron disorders
KW - telomere–genetics
KW - whole genome sequence (WGS)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85145322797&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fncel.2022.1050596
DO - 10.3389/fncel.2022.1050596
M3 - Article
C2 - 36589292
AN - SCOPUS:85145322797
SN - 1662-5102
VL - 16
SP - 1050596
JO - Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience
JF - Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience
M1 - 1050596
ER -