Wong, Doris and Auguste, Gaëlle and Lino Cardenas, Christian L. and Turner, Adam W. and Chen, Yixuan and Song, Yipei and Ma, Lijiang and Perry, R. Noah and Aherrahrou, Redouane and Kuppusamy, Maniselvan and Yang, Chaojie and Mosquera, Jose Verdezoto and Dube, Collin J. and Khan, Mohammad Daud and Palmore, Meredith and Kalra, Jaspreet and Kavousi, Maryam and Peyser, Patricia A. and Matic, Ljubica and Hedin, Ulf and Manichaikul, Ani and Sonkusare, Swapnil K. and Civelek, Mete and Kovacic, Jason C. and Björkegren, Johan L.M. and Malhotra, Rajeev and Miller, Clint L. (2023) FHL5 Controls Vascular Disease–Associated Gene Programs in Smooth Muscle Cells. Circulation Research, 132 (9). pp.1144-1161. ISSN 0009-7330
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
BACKGROUND: Genome-wide association studies have identified hundreds of loci associated with common vascular diseases, such as coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, and hypertension. However, the lack of mechanistic insights for many GWAS loci limits their translation into the clinic. Among these loci with unknown functions is UFL1-four-and-a-half LIM (LIN-11, Isl-1, MEC-3) domain 5 (FHL5; chr6q16.1), which reached genome-wide significance in a recent coronary artery disease/ myocardial infarction GWAS meta-analysis. UFL1-FHL5 is also associated with several vascular diseases, consistent with the widespread pleiotropy observed for GWAS loci. METHODS: We apply a multimodal approach leveraging statistical fine-mapping, epigenomic profiling, and ex vivo analysis of human coronary artery tissues to implicate FHL5 as the top candidate causal gene. We unravel the molecular mechanisms of the cross-phenotype genetic associations through in vitro functional analyses and epigenomic profiling experiments in coronary artery smooth muscle cells. RESULTS: We prioritized FHL5 as the top candidate causal gene at the UFL1-FHL5 locus through expression quantitative trait locus colocalization methods. FHL5 gene expression was enriched in the smooth muscle cells and pericyte population in human artery tissues with coexpression network analyses supporting a functional role in regulating smooth muscle cell contraction. Unexpectedly, under procalcifying conditions, FHL5 overexpression promoted vascular calcification and dysregulated processes related to extracellular matrix organization and calcium handling. Lastly, by mapping FHL5 binding sites and inferring FHL5 target gene function using artery tissue gene regulatory network analyses, we highlight regulatory interactions between FHL5 and downstream coronary artery disease/myocardial infarction loci, such as FOXL1 and FN1 that have roles in vascular remodeling. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, these studies provide mechanistic insights into the pleiotropic genetic associations of UFL1-FHL5. We show that FHL5 mediates vascular disease risk through transcriptional regulation of downstream vascular remodeling gene programs. These transacting mechanisms may explain a portion of the heritable risk for complex vascular diseases.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | R Medicine > R Medicine (General) |
| Depositing User: | Repository Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 10 Jul 2023 04:28 |
| Last Modified: | 10 Jul 2023 04:28 |
| URI: | https://eprints.victorchang.edu.au/id/eprint/1425 |
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