Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of stroke — the second leading cause of death worldwide — were conducted predominantly in populations of European ancestry1,2. Here, in cross-ancestry GWAS meta-analyses of 110,182 patients who have had a stroke (five ancestries, 33% non-European) and 1,503,898 control individuals, we identify association signals for stroke and its subtypes at 89 (61 new) independent loci: 60 in primary inverse-variance-weighted analyses and 29 in secondary meta-regression and multitrait analyses. On the basis of internal cross-ancestry validation and an independent follow-up in 89,084 additional cases of stroke (30% non-European) and 1,013,843 control individuals, 87% of the primary stroke risk loci and 60% of the secondary stroke risk loci were replicated (P < 0.05). Effect sizes were highly correlated across ancestries. Cross-ancestry fine-mapping, in silico mutagenesis analysis3, and transcriptome-wide and proteome-wide association analyses revealed putative causal genes (such as SH3PXD2A and FURIN) and variants (such as at GRK5 and NOS3). Using a three-pronged approach4, we provide genetic evidence for putative drug effects, highlighting F11, KLKB1, PROC, GP1BA, LAMC2 and VCAM1 as possible targets, with drugs already under investigation for stroke for F11 and PROC. A polygenic score integrating cross-ancestry and ancestry-specific stroke GWASs with vascular-risk factor GWASs (integrative polygenic scores) strongly predicted ischaemic stroke in populations of European, East Asian and African ancestry5. Stroke genetic risk scores were predictive of ischaemic stroke independent of clinical risk factors in 52,600 clinical-trial participants with cardiometabolic disease. Our results provide insights to inform biology, reveal potential drug targets and derive genetic risk prediction tools across ancestries.
Background and Objectives:Current genome-wide association studies of ischemic stroke have focused primarily on late onset disease. As a complement to these studies, we sought to identifythe contribution of common genetic variants to risk of early onset ischemic stroke.Methods:We performed a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of early onset stroke (EOS), ages 18-59, using individual level data or summary statistics in 16,730 cases and 599,237 non-stroke controls obtained across 48 different studies. We further compared effect sizes at associated loci between EOS and late onset stroke (LOS) and compared polygenic risk scores for venous thromboembolism between EOS and LOS.Results:We observed genome-wide significant associations of EOS with two variants in ABO, a known stroke locus. These variants tag blood subgroups O1 and A1, and the effect sizes of both variants were significantly larger in EOS compared to LOS. The odds ratio (OR) for rs529565, tagging O1, 0.88 (95% CI: 0.85-0.91) in EOS vs 0.96 (95% CI: 0.92-1.00) in LOS, and the OR for rs635634, tagging A1, was 1.16 (1.11-1.21) for EOS vs 1.05 (0.99-1.11) in LOS; p-values for interaction = 0.001 and 0.005, respectively. Using polygenic risk scores, we observed that greater genetic risk for venous thromboembolism, another prothrombotic condition, was more strongly associated with EOS compared to LOS (p=0.008).Discussion:The ABO locus, genetically predicted blood group A, and higher genetic propensity for venous thrombosis are more strongly associated with EOS than with LOS, supporting a stronger role of prothrombotic factors in EOS.
Background and Objectives:While chronological age is one of the most influential determinants of post-stroke outcomes, little is known of the impact of neuroimaging-derived biological “brain age”. We hypothesized that radiomics analyses of T2-FLAIR images texture would provide brain age estimates and that advanced brain age of stroke patients will be associated with cardiovascular risk factors and worse functional outcomes.Methods:We extracted radiomics from T2-FLAIR images acquired during acute stroke clinical evaluation. Brain age was determined from brain parenchyma radiomics using an ElasticNet linear regression model. Subsequently, relative brain age (RBA), which expresses brain age in comparison to chronological age-matched peers, was estimated. Finally, we built a linear regression model of RBA using clinical cardiovascular characteristics as inputs, and a logistic regression model of favorable functional outcomes taking RBA as input.Results:We reviewed 4,163 patients from a large multisite ischemic stroke cohort (mean age=62.8 years, 42.0% females). T2-FLAIR radiomics predicted chronological ages (mean absolute error=6.9 years, r=0.81). After adjustment for covariates, RBA was higher and therefore described older-appearing brains in patients with hypertension, diabetes mellitus, a history of smoking, and a history of a prior stroke. In multivariate analyses, age, RBA, NIHSS, and a history of prior stroke were all significantly associated with functional outcome (respective adjusted Odds-Ratios: 0.58, 0.76, 0.48, 0.55; all p-values<0.001). Moreover, the negative effect of RBA on outcome was especially pronounced in minor strokes.Discussion:T2-FLAIR radiomics can be used to predict brain age and derive RBA. Older appearing brains, characterized by a higher RBA, reflect cardiovascular risk factor accumulation and are linked to worse outcomes after stroke.
Background: Multi-phenotype analysis of genetically correlated phenotypes can increase the statistical power to detect loci associated with multiple traits, leading to the discovery of novel loci. This is the first study to date to comprehensively analyze the shared genetic effects within different hemostatic traits, and between these and their associated disease outcomes. Objectives:To discover novel genetic associations by combining summary data of correlated hemostatic traits and disease events. Methods: Summary statistics from genome wide-association studies (GWAS) from seven hemostatic traits (factor VII [FVII], factor VIII [FVIII], von Willebrand factor [VWF] factor XI [FXI], fibrinogen, tissue plasminogen activator [tPA], plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 [PAI-1]) and three major cardiovascular (CV) events (venous thromboembolism [VTE], coronary artery disease [CAD], ischemic stroke [IS]), wereThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified dozens of loci underlying the variability of plasma levels for individual hemostatic traits. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Further, GWAS for venous thromboembolism (VTE), 9,10 coronary artery disease (CAD) [11][12][13] and ischemic stroke (IS), 11,14 have discovered 34, 169, and 20 genetic risk loci associated with these cardiovascular (CV) events, respectively.Results from GWAS indicate that several of these hemostatic traits are genetically correlated with each other, sharing genetic loci that regulate their plasma levels. 1,[4][5][6][7][8] There are also shared genetic loci between hemostatic traits and CV events, again suggesting common regulators and possibly a causal pathway between the hemostatic trait and the CV event. 4,[7][8][9]12,14 The common regulatory loci between traits-even if the traits are not causally associated with each other-can be used to advance discovery of novel genetic loci common to the traits. This discovery can be accomplished with multiphenotype methods that incorporate summary statistics from several GWAS, increasing the statistical power to detect loci affecting two or more phenotypes by increasing the effective sample size. [15][16][17] In the present study, we used summary statistics of published GWAS from 7 hemostatic traits (FVII, FVIII, VWF, FXI, fibrinogen, PAI-1, tPA), and 3 CV events (VTE, CAD, IS) to calculate their genetic correlations and to conduct multi-phenotype meta-analyses to detect new genetic loci not previously known to be associated with these phenotypes.
While chronological age is one of the most influential determinants of post-stroke outcomes, little is known of the impact of neuroimaging-derived biological brain age. We here first examine whether radiomics analysis of the texture of brain T2-FLAIR MRI images can be used to predict brain age in stroke patients. We then assess the clinical determinants of accelerated brain aging and, finally, its impact on post-stroke functional outcomes. Leveraging a multisite cohort of 4,163 ischemic stroke patients, we show that older-appearing patients have more hypertension, diabetes mellitus, prior strokes, and smoking history and are more likely to develop worse post-stroke outcomes than their younger-appearing counterparts. Our results strengthen the importance of preventive medicine for maintaining brain health in stroke patients as they age and suggest a novel methodology to capture previously undescribed prognostic information available on commonly acquired MRI sequences during routine stroke care.
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