| Title: | Transcriptome-wide gene-gene interaction associations elucidate pathways and functional enrichment of complex traits |
| Journal: | PLOS Genetics |
| Published: | 22 May 2023 |
| Pubmed: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37216417/ |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1010693 |
| URL: | https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1010693&type=printable |
Publication 7822
WARNING: the interactive features of this website use CSS3, which your browser does not support. To use the full features of this website, please update your browser.
Abstract
It remains unknown to what extent gene-gene interactions contribute to complex traits. Here, we introduce a new approach using predicted gene expression to perform exhaustive transcriptome-wide interaction studies (TWISs) for multiple traits across all pairs of genes expressed in several tissue types. Using imputed transcriptomes, we simultaneously reduce the computational challenge and improve interpretability and statistical power. We discover (in the UK Biobank) and replicate (in independent cohorts) several interaction associations, and find several hub genes with numerous interactions. We also demonstrate that TWIS can identify novel associated genes because genes with many or strong interactions have smaller single-locus model effect sizes. Finally, we develop a method to test gene set enrichment of TWIS associations (E-TWIS), finding numerous pathways and networks enriched in interaction associations. Epistasis is may be widespread, and our procedure represents a tractable framework for beginning to explore gene interactions and identify novel genomic targets.8 Authors
- Luke M. Evans
- Christopher H. Arehart
- Andrew D. Grotzinger
- Travis J. Mize
- Maizy S. Brasher
- Jerry A. Stitzel
- Marissa A. Ehringer
- Charles A. Hoeffer
Enabling scientific discoveries that improve human health