Extensive pleiotropism and allelic heterogeneity mediate metabolic effects of and .

Science (New York, N.Y.)
Authors
Abstract

Whereas coding variants often have pleiotropic effects across multiple tissues, noncoding variants are thought to mediate their phenotypic effects by specific tissue and temporal regulation of gene expression. Here, we investigated the genetic and functional architecture of a genomic region within the gene that is strongly associated with obesity risk. We show that multiple variants on a common haplotype modify the regulatory properties of several enhancers targeting and from megabase distances. We demonstrate that these enhancers affect gene expression in multiple tissues, including adipose and brain, and impart regulatory effects during a restricted temporal window. Our data indicate that the genetic architecture of disease-associated loci may involve extensive pleiotropy, allelic heterogeneity, shared allelic effects across tissues, and temporally restricted effects.

Year of Publication
2021
Journal
Science (New York, N.Y.)
Volume
372
Issue
6546
Pages
1085-1091
Date Published
06/2021
ISSN
1095-9203
DOI
10.1126/science.abf1008
PubMed ID
34083488
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