Genome-wide association analysis of juvenile idiopathic arthritis identifies a new susceptibility locus at chromosomal region 3q13.

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is the most common chronic childhood rheumatic disease in the Western world. To identify novel JIA predisposing loci, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 814 Caucasian JIA cases and 3058 Caucasian controls was completed. After adjusting for the most significant HLA associations, the strongest novel associations included rs6479891 (10q21, odds ratio (OR)=1.59, P=1.3x10-8) and rs10761747 (OR=1.34, P=4.0x10-5) within JMJD1C; rs12719740 (15q26, OR=1.47, P=3.3x10-7) near FAM169B; rs4688011 (3q13, OR=1.33, P=1.1x10-4) within C3orf1 and rs4254850 (4q31, OR=0.85, P=7.8x10-3) near IL15. Eleven SNPs were genotyped in Caucasian replication cohorts (1744 cases, 7010 controls) and meta-analysis continued to provide evidence for association with three of the SNPs (rs6479891, P=4.3x10-5; rs12719740, P=5.2x10-4; rs4688011, P=3.6x10-7). Analysis of expression data from 68 JIA cases and 23 controls overlapping in the GWAS cohort1 and published lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCL)2 showed cis eQTL associations for JMJD1C SNPs (P=0.01 and P=1.6x10-6, respectively), and the C3orf1 SNP (P=5.7x10-6).

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Thompson SD, Marion MC, Sudman M, Ryan M, Tsoras M, Howard TD, Barnes MG, Ramos PS, Thomson W, Hinks A, Haas JP, Prahalad S, Bohnsack JF, Wise CA, Punaro M, Rosé CD, Pajewski NM, Spigarelli M, Keddache M, Wagner M, Langefeld CD, Glass DN