Genome-wide association study of CNVs in 16,000 cases of eight common diseases and 3,000 shared controls.
Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium None., Craddock N., Hurles ME., Cardin N., Pearson RD., Plagnol V., Robson S., Vukcevic D., Barnes C., Conrad DF., Giannoulatou E., Holmes C., Marchini JL., Stirrups K., Tobin MD., Wain LV., Yau C., Aerts J., Ahmad T., Andrews TD., Arbury H., Attwood A., Auton A., Ball SG., Balmforth AJ., Barrett JC., Barroso I., Barton A., Bennett AJ., Bhaskar S., Blaszczyk K., Bowes J., Brand OJ., Braund PS., Bredin F., Breen G., Brown MJ., Bruce IN., Bull J., Burren OS., Burton J., Byrnes J., Caesar S., Clee CM., Coffey AJ., Connell JMC., Cooper JD., Dominiczak AF., Downes K., Drummond HE., Dudakia D., Dunham A., Ebbs B., Eccles D., Edkins S., Edwards C., Elliot A., Emery P., Evans DM., Evans G., Eyre S., Farmer A., Ferrier IN., Feuk L., Fitzgerald T., Flynn E., Forbes A., Forty L., Franklyn JA., Freathy RM., Gibbs P., Gilbert P., Gokumen O., Gordon-Smith K., Gray E., Green E., Groves CJ., Grozeva D., Gwilliam R., Hall A., Hammond N., Hardy M., Harrison P., Hassanali N., Hebaishi H., Hines S., Hinks A., Hitman GA., Hocking L., Howard E., Howard P., Howson JMM., Hughes D., Hunt S., Isaacs JD., Jain M., Jewell DP., Johnson T., Jolley JD., Jones IR., Jones LA., Kirov G., Langford CF., Lango-Allen H., Lathrop GM., Lee J., Lee KL., Lees C., Lewis K., Lindgren CM., Maisuria-Armer M., Maller J., Mansfield J., Martin P., Massey DCO., McArdle WL., McGuffin P., McLay KE., Mentzer A., Mimmack ML., Morgan AE., Morris AP., Mowat C., Myers S., Newman W., Nimmo ER., O'Donovan MC., Onipinla A., Onyiah I., Ovington NR., Owen MJ., Palin K., Parnell K., Pernet D., Perry JRB., Phillips A., Pinto D., Prescott NJ., Prokopenko I., Quail MA., Rafelt S., Rayner NW., Redon R., Reid DM., Renwick None., Ring SM., Robertson N., Russell E., St Clair D., Sambrook JG., Sanderson JD., Schuilenburg H., Scott CE., Scott R., Seal S., Shaw-Hawkins S., Shields BM., Simmonds MJ., Smyth DJ., Somaskantharajah E., Spanova K., Steer S., Stephens J., Stevens HE., Stone MA., Su Z., Symmons DPM., Thompson JR., Thomson W., Travers ME., Turnbull C., Valsesia A., Walker M., Walker NM., Wallace C., Warren-Perry M., Watkins NA., Webster J., Weedon MN., Wilson AG., Woodburn M., Wordsworth BP., Young AH., Zeggini E., Carter NP., Frayling TM., Lee C., McVean G., Munroe PB., Palotie A., Sawcer SJ., Scherer SW., Strachan DP., Tyler-Smith C., Brown MA., Burton PR., Caulfield MJ., Compston A., Farrall M., Gough SCL., Hall AS., Hattersley AT., Hill AVS., Mathew CG., Pembrey M., Satsangi J., Stratton MR., Worthington J., Deloukas P., Duncanson A., Kwiatkowski DP., McCarthy MI., Ouwehand W., Parkes M., Rahman N., Todd JA., Samani NJ., Donnelly P.
Copy number variants (CNVs) account for a major proportion of human genetic polymorphism and have been predicted to have an important role in genetic susceptibility to common disease. To address this we undertook a large, direct genome-wide study of association between CNVs and eight common human diseases. Using a purpose-designed array we typed approximately 19,000 individuals into distinct copy-number classes at 3,432 polymorphic CNVs, including an estimated approximately 50% of all common CNVs larger than 500 base pairs. We identified several biological artefacts that lead to false-positive associations, including systematic CNV differences between DNAs derived from blood and cell lines. Association testing and follow-up replication analyses confirmed three loci where CNVs were associated with disease-IRGM for Crohn's disease, HLA for Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes, and TSPAN8 for type 2 diabetes-although in each case the locus had previously been identified in single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based studies, reflecting our observation that most common CNVs that are well-typed on our array are well tagged by SNPs and so have been indirectly explored through SNP studies. We conclude that common CNVs that can be typed on existing platforms are unlikely to contribute greatly to the genetic basis of common human diseases.