News Releases & Research Results Genome-wide association studies in more than 600,000 individuals reveal the effect of variants on the onset of coronary artery disease

The results of an international collaborative research project conducted by Team Leader Kaoru Ito, Postdoctoral Researcher Satoshi Koyama of the Laboratory for Cardiovascular Genomics and Informatics, Riken Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, Deputy Director Michiaki Kubo of the Riken Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (at the time of the research), Professor Issei Komuro, Professor Yoichiro Kamatani, Professor Hiroyuki Aburatani, Professor Yoshinori Murakami, Project Assistant Professor Seitaro Nomura of the University of Tokyo, and others.

• A genome-wide association study (GWAS) conducted by using genome data from approximately 170,000 Japanese people, in the context of the BioBank Japan, allowed the identification of 48 susceptibility loci (particular regions in the chromosomes) associated with coronary artery disease, including 8 loci not identified by previous studies in a European population.
• An additional combined analysis with previous GWAS data from a European population identified 175 susceptibility loci including 35 newly identified loci; the genetic risk score (GRS), which can predict the risk of coronary artery disease onset in Japanese people was calculated.
• These results may contribute to the development of personalized prevention/treatment approaches based on genetic information as well as to the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the onset of coronary artery disease.

This project was conducted with the support of the Tailor-Made Medical Treatment with the BioBank Japan Project and the Platform Program for Promotion of Genome Medicine by AMED.

These results were published online in Nature Genetics, a scientific journal, on October 6.

Koyama S., et al. Population-specific and trans-ancestry genome-wide analyses identify distinct and shared genetic risk loci for coronary artery Disease Nature Genetics
DOI: 10.1038/s41588-020-0705-3