{"title":"Functional Characterization of Genetic Variant Effects on Expression.","authors":"Elise D. Flynn, T. Lappalainen","doi":"10.1146/annurev-biodatasci-122120-010010","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Thousands of common genetic variants in the human population have been associated with disease risk and phenotypic variation by genome-wide association studies (GWAS). However, the majority of GWAS variants fall into noncoding regions of the genome, complicating our understanding of their regulatory functions, and few molecular mechanisms of GWAS variant effects have been clearly elucidated. Here, we set out to review genetic variant effects, focusing on expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs), including their utility in interpreting GWAS variant mechanisms. We discuss the interrelated challenges and opportunities for eQTL analysis, covering determining causal variants, elucidating molecular mechanisms of action, and understanding context variability. Addressing these questions can enable better functional characterization of disease-associated loci and provide insights into fundamental biological questions of the noncoding genetic regulatory code and its control of gene expression. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science, Volume 5 is August 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.","PeriodicalId":29775,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-biodatasci-122120-010010","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MATHEMATICAL & COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
Thousands of common genetic variants in the human population have been associated with disease risk and phenotypic variation by genome-wide association studies (GWAS). However, the majority of GWAS variants fall into noncoding regions of the genome, complicating our understanding of their regulatory functions, and few molecular mechanisms of GWAS variant effects have been clearly elucidated. Here, we set out to review genetic variant effects, focusing on expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs), including their utility in interpreting GWAS variant mechanisms. We discuss the interrelated challenges and opportunities for eQTL analysis, covering determining causal variants, elucidating molecular mechanisms of action, and understanding context variability. Addressing these questions can enable better functional characterization of disease-associated loci and provide insights into fundamental biological questions of the noncoding genetic regulatory code and its control of gene expression. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science, Volume 5 is August 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
期刊介绍:
The Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science provides comprehensive expert reviews in biomedical data science, focusing on advanced methods to store, retrieve, analyze, and organize biomedical data and knowledge. The scope of the journal encompasses informatics, computational, artificial intelligence (AI), and statistical approaches to biomedical data, including the sub-fields of bioinformatics, computational biology, biomedical informatics, clinical and clinical research informatics, biostatistics, and imaging informatics. The mission of the journal is to identify both emerging and established areas of biomedical data science, and the leaders in these fields.