NHLBI TOPMed: African American Sarcoidosis Genetics Resource

Description

The description below was taken directly from the NCBI database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP):

This study is part of the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) Whole Genome Sequencing Program. TOPMed is part of a broader Precision Medicine Initiative, which aims to provide disease treatments that are tailored to an individual's unique genes and environment. TOPMed will contribute to this initiative through the integration of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and other -omics (e.g., metabolic profiles, protein and RNA expression patterns) data with molecular, behavioral, imaging, environmental, and clinical data. In doing so, this program aims to uncover factors that increase or decrease the risk of disease, to identify subtypes of disease, and to develop more targeted and personalized treatments. Two genotype call sets derived from WGS are now available, one called Freeze 4 (GRCh37) and another called Freeze 5b (GRCh38), with largely overlapping sample sets. Information about how to identify other TOPMed WGS accessions for cross-study analysis, as well as descriptions of TOPMed methods of data acquisition, data processing and quality control, are provided in the accompanying documents, "TOPMed Whole Genome Sequencing Project - Freeze 4, Phase 1" and "TOPMed Whole Genome Sequencing Project - Freeze 5b, Phases 1 and 2". Please check the study list at the top of each of these methods documents to determine whether it applies to this study accession.

This study aims to comprehensively interrogate the genomes of African American sarcoidosis families. Sarcoidosis is characterized by a hyperimmune response resulting in granuloma formation in multiple organs. It affects African Americans (AAs) more frequently and more severely than whites. While previous linkage, admixture, candidate gene and genome-wide association (GWA) studies show statistically compelling effects, causal variants are still unknown and much of sarcoidosis heritability is yet to be explained. This "missing" heritability likely includes effects of both common (minor allele frequency (MAF)>5%) and rare variants (MAF<5%), since, in AAs, the former are inadequately represented and the latter are completely unexplored by commercial genotyping arrays. These facts, coupled with the availability of next-generation sequencing compel us to perform an exhaustive search for genetic variants that form the basis of sarcoidosis. The data generated are certain to identify candidate causal variants, provide fundamental insight for functional studies and lead to important new hypotheses of inflammation resulting in new treatments in not only sarcoidosis but other inflammatory diseases as well.

General information

phs#	Study abbreviation	Study type	Parent phs#
phs001207	Sarcoidosis	Family, Affected Sib Pairs	N/A