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Comparative Study
. 2019 Nov 1;142(11):3473-3481.
doi: 10.1093/brain/awz292.

Polygenic burden in focal and generalized epilepsies

Collaborators, Affiliations
Comparative Study

Polygenic burden in focal and generalized epilepsies

Costin Leu et al. Brain. .

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Abstract

Rare genetic variants can cause epilepsy, and genetic testing has been widely adopted for severe, paediatric-onset epilepsies. The phenotypic consequences of common genetic risk burden for epilepsies and their potential future clinical applications have not yet been determined. Using polygenic risk scores (PRS) from a European-ancestry genome-wide association study in generalized and focal epilepsy, we quantified common genetic burden in patients with generalized epilepsy (GE-PRS) or focal epilepsy (FE-PRS) from two independent non-Finnish European cohorts (Epi25 Consortium, n = 5705; Cleveland Clinic Epilepsy Center, n = 620; both compared to 20 435 controls). One Finnish-ancestry population isolate (Finnish-ancestry Epi25, n = 449; compared to 1559 controls), two European-ancestry biobanks (UK Biobank, n = 383 656; Vanderbilt biorepository, n = 49 494), and one Japanese-ancestry biobank (BioBank Japan, n = 168 680) were used for additional replications. Across 8386 patients with epilepsy and 622 212 population controls, we found and replicated significantly higher GE-PRS in patients with generalized epilepsy of European-ancestry compared to patients with focal epilepsy (Epi25: P = 1.64×10-15; Cleveland: P = 2.85×10-4; Finnish-ancestry Epi25: P = 1.80×10-4) or population controls (Epi25: P = 2.35×10-70; Cleveland: P = 1.43×10-7; Finnish-ancestry Epi25: P = 3.11×10-4; UK Biobank and Vanderbilt biorepository meta-analysis: P = 7.99×10-4). FE-PRS were significantly higher in patients with focal epilepsy compared to controls in the non-Finnish, non-biobank cohorts (Epi25: P = 5.74×10-19; Cleveland: P = 1.69×10-6). European ancestry-derived PRS did not predict generalized epilepsy or focal epilepsy in Japanese-ancestry individuals. Finally, we observed a significant 4.6-fold and a 4.5-fold enrichment of patients with generalized epilepsy compared to controls in the top 0.5% highest GE-PRS of the two non-Finnish European cohorts (Epi25: P = 2.60×10-15; Cleveland: P = 1.39×10-2). We conclude that common variant risk associated with epilepsy is significantly enriched in multiple cohorts of patients with epilepsy compared to controls-in particular for generalized epilepsy. As sample sizes and PRS accuracy continue to increase with further common variant discovery, PRS could complement established clinical biomarkers and augment genetic testing for patient classification, comorbidity research, and potentially targeted treatment.

Keywords: common variant risk; epilepsy; genetic generalized epilepsy; genetics.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study design. (1) PRSs for the two main classes of epilepsy (generalized and focal) were derived from the largest GWAS in epilepsy to date (International League Against Epilepsy Consortium on Complex Epilepsies, 2018). (2) PRS were calculated in patients with generalized or focal epilepsy and in population controls and (3) tested in their ability to identify significant differences of common variant burden among groups. (4) The UK and Vanderbilt biobanks were available to test the behaviour of the PRSs in individuals ascertained by ICD-10 codes for epilepsy, while the Biobank Japan was available to test the performance in a non-European population. SNP = single nucleotide polymorphism.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Genome-wide polygenic risk for generalized epilepsy or focal epilepsy in the exploration and replication cohorts. Shown are the means of the standardized GE-, FE-, and type 2 diabetes-PRS with 95% confidence intervals for the European-ancestry population controls (highlighted in blue; n = 20 435), the European-ancestry generalized epilepsy and focal epilepsy Epi25 exploration cohorts (highlighted in green; GE-Epi25-EUR, n = 2256; FE-Epi25-EUR, n = 3449), and the European-ancestry generalized epilepsy and focal epilepsy Cleveland Clinic replication cohorts (highlighted in red; GE-Cleveland-EUR, n = 85; FE-Cleveland-EUR, n = 535). The P-values for the differences between cases and population controls are given as numbers. The threshold for statistical significance after Bonferroni correction was set to α = 1.67 × 10−2 (three tests per cohort).

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