A phenomics-based approach for the detection and interpretation of shared genetic influences on 29 biochemical indices in Chinese south men

Abstract

Background: Phenomics provides a new technologies and platforms as a systematic phenome-genome approach. However, few studies have reported on the system mining of shared genetics among clinical biochemical indices based on Phenomics methods, especially in China. This study aimed to apply phenomics to systematically explore shared genetics among 29 biochemical indices based on the Fangchenggang Area Male Health and Examination Survey cohort. Result: A total of 1,999 subjects with 29 biochemical indices and 709,211 single nucleotide polymorphisms were subjected to phenomics analysis. Three bioinformatics methods, namely, Pearson test, Jaccard index, and linkage disequilibrium score regression , were used. Results showed that 29 biochemical indices were from a network. IgA, IgG, IgE, IgM, HCY, AFP and B12 were in the central community of 29 biochemical indices. Key genes and loci associated with metabolism traits were further identified, shared-genetics analysis showed that 29 SNPs (P < 10 -4 ) were associated with three or more traits. After integrating the SNPs related to two or more traits with the GWAS catalog, 31 SNPs were found to be associated with several diseases (P < 10 -8 ). Taking ALDH2 as an example to preliminarily explore its biological function, we also confirmed that rs671 (ALDH2) polymorphism affected multiple traits of osteogenesis and adipogenesis differentiation in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. Conclusion: All these findings indicated a network of shared genetics and 29 biochemical indices, which will helpfully understand the genetics participated in biochemical metabolism.