TY - JOUR
T1 - Genome-wide analyses in Lyme borreliosis
T2 - identification of a genetic variant associated with disease susceptibility and its immunological implications
AU - Vrijmoeth, Hedwig D.
AU - Ursinus, Jeanine
AU - Botey-Bataller, Javier
AU - Kuijpers, Yunus
AU - Chu, Xiaojing
AU - van de Schoor, Freek R.
AU - Scicluna, Brendon P.
AU - Xu, Cheng-Jian
AU - Netea, Mihai G.
AU - Kullberg, Bart Jan
AU - van den Wijngaard, Cees C.
AU - Li, Yang
AU - Hovius, Joppe W.
AU - Joosten, Leo A. B.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024/12/1
Y1 - 2024/12/1
N2 - Background: Genetic variation underly inter-individual variation in host immune responses to infectious diseases, and may affect susceptibility or the course of signs and symptoms. Methods: We performed genome-wide association studies in a prospective cohort of 1138 patients with physician-confirmed Lyme borreliosis (LB), the most common tick-borne disease in the Northern hemisphere caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato. Genome-wide variants in LB patients—divided into a discovery and validation cohort—were compared to two healthy cohorts. Additionally, ex vivo monocyte-derived cytokine responses of peripheral blood mononuclear cells to several stimuli including Borrelia burgdorferi were performed in both LB patient and healthy control samples, as were stimulation experiments using mechanistic/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors. In addition, for LB patients, anti-Borrelia antibody responses were measured. Finally, in a subset of LB patients, gene expression was analysed using RNA-sequencing data from the ex vivo stimulation experiments. Results: We identified a previously unknown genetic variant, rs1061632, that was associated with enhanced LB susceptibility. This polymorphism was an eQTL for KCTD20 and ETV7 genes, and its major risk allele was associated with upregulation of the mTOR pathway and cytokine responses, and lower anti-Borrelia antibody production. In addition, we replicated the recently reported SCGB1D2 locus that was suggested to have a protective effect on B. burgdorferi infection, and associated this locus with higher Borrelia burgdorferi antibody indexes and lower IL-10 responses. Conclusions: Susceptibility for LB was associated with higher anti-inflammatory responses and reduced anti-Borrelia antibody production, which in turn may negatively impact bacterial clearance. These findings provide important insights into the immunogenetic susceptibility for LB and may guide future studies on development of preventive or therapeutic measures. Trial registration: The LymeProspect study was registered with the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (NTR4998, registration date 2015–02-13).
AB - Background: Genetic variation underly inter-individual variation in host immune responses to infectious diseases, and may affect susceptibility or the course of signs and symptoms. Methods: We performed genome-wide association studies in a prospective cohort of 1138 patients with physician-confirmed Lyme borreliosis (LB), the most common tick-borne disease in the Northern hemisphere caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato. Genome-wide variants in LB patients—divided into a discovery and validation cohort—were compared to two healthy cohorts. Additionally, ex vivo monocyte-derived cytokine responses of peripheral blood mononuclear cells to several stimuli including Borrelia burgdorferi were performed in both LB patient and healthy control samples, as were stimulation experiments using mechanistic/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors. In addition, for LB patients, anti-Borrelia antibody responses were measured. Finally, in a subset of LB patients, gene expression was analysed using RNA-sequencing data from the ex vivo stimulation experiments. Results: We identified a previously unknown genetic variant, rs1061632, that was associated with enhanced LB susceptibility. This polymorphism was an eQTL for KCTD20 and ETV7 genes, and its major risk allele was associated with upregulation of the mTOR pathway and cytokine responses, and lower anti-Borrelia antibody production. In addition, we replicated the recently reported SCGB1D2 locus that was suggested to have a protective effect on B. burgdorferi infection, and associated this locus with higher Borrelia burgdorferi antibody indexes and lower IL-10 responses. Conclusions: Susceptibility for LB was associated with higher anti-inflammatory responses and reduced anti-Borrelia antibody production, which in turn may negatively impact bacterial clearance. These findings provide important insights into the immunogenetic susceptibility for LB and may guide future studies on development of preventive or therapeutic measures. Trial registration: The LymeProspect study was registered with the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (NTR4998, registration date 2015–02-13).
KW - Cytokines
KW - Disease susceptibility
KW - GWAS
KW - Lyme borreliosis
KW - mTOR pathway
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85188354105&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/s12879-024-09217-z
DO - 10.1186/s12879-024-09217-z
M3 - Article
C2 - 38515037
SN - 1471-2334
VL - 24
JO - BMC Infectious Diseases
JF - BMC Infectious Diseases
IS - 1
M1 - 337
ER -