Browsing by Author "Lazaridis, Konstantinos N."

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    An international genome-wide meta-analysis of primary biliary cholangitis: Novel risk loci and candidate drugs
    (Elsevier, 2021) Cordell, Heather J.; Fryett, James J.; Ueno, Kazuko; Darlay, Rebecca; Aiba, Yoshihiro; Hitomi, Yuki; Kawashima, Minae; Nishida, Nao; Khor, Seik-Soon; Gervais, Olivier; Kawai, Yosuke; Nagasaki, Masao; Tokunaga, Katsushi; Tang, Ruqi; Shi, Yongyong; Li, Zhiqiang; Juran, Brian D.; Atkinson, Elizabeth J.; Gerussi, Alessio; Carbone, Marco; Asselta, Rosanna; Cheung, Angela; de Andrade, Mariza; Baras, Aris; Horowitz, Julie; Ferreira, Manuel A. R.; Sun, Dylan; Jones, David E.; Flack, Steven; Spicer, Ann; Mulcahy, Victoria L.; Byan, Jinyoung; Han, Younghun; Sandford, Richard N.; Lazaridis, Konstantinos N.; Amos, Christopher I.; Hirschfield, Gideon M.; Seldin, Michael F.; Invernizzi, Pietro; Siminovitch, Katherine A.; Ma, Xiong; Nakamura, Minoru; Mells, George F.; PBC Consortia; Canadian PBC Consortium; Chinese PBC Consortium; Italian PBC Study Group; Japan-PBC-GWAS Consortium; US PBC Consortium; UK-PBC Consortium; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Backgrounds & aims: Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a chronic liver disease in which autoimmune destruction of the small intrahepatic bile ducts eventually leads to cirrhosis. Many patients have inadequate response to licensed medications, motivating the search for novel therapies. Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and meta-analyses (GWMA) of PBC have identified numerous risk loci for this condition, providing insight into its aetiology. We undertook the largest GWMA of PBC to date, aiming to identify additional risk loci and prioritise candidate genes for in silico drug efficacy screening. Methods: We combined new and existing genotype data for 10,516 cases and 20,772 controls from 5 European and 2 East Asian cohorts. Results: We identified 56 genome-wide significant loci (20 novel) including 46 in European, 13 in Asian, and 41 in combined cohorts; and a 57th genome-wide significant locus (also novel) in conditional analysis of the European cohorts. Candidate genes at newly identified loci include FCRL3, INAVA, PRDM1, IRF7, CCR6, CD226, and IL12RB1, which each play key roles in immunity. Pathway analysis reiterated the likely importance of pattern recognition receptor and TNF signalling, JAK-STAT signalling, and differentiation of T helper (TH)1 and TH17 cells in the pathogenesis of this disease. Drug efficacy screening identified several medications predicted to be therapeutic in PBC, some of which are well-established in the treatment of other autoimmune disorders. Conclusions: This study has identified additional risk loci for PBC, provided a hierarchy of agents that could be trialled in this condition, and emphasised the value of genetic and genomic approaches to drug discovery in complex disorders. Lay summary: Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a chronic liver disease that eventually leads to cirrhosis. In this study, we analysed genetic information from 10,516 people with PBC and 20,772 healthy individuals recruited in Canada, China, Italy, Japan, the UK, or the USA. We identified several genetic regions associated with PBC. Each of these regions contains several genes. For each region, we used diverse sources of evidence to help us choose the gene most likely to be involved in causing PBC. We used these 'candidate genes' to help us identify medications that are currently used for treatment of other conditions, which might also be useful for treatment of PBC.
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    Environmental risk factors are associated with autoimmune hepatitis
    (Wiley, 2021) Lammert, Craig; Chalasani, Sai N.; Atkinson, Elizabeth J.; McCauley, Bryan M.; Lazaridis, Konstantinos N.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Background: Failure of immunologic homeostasis and resultant hepatocyte destruction in autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is likely the result of environmental triggers within a permissive genetic architecture. Aims: We aimed to identify risk factors associated with AIH in a well-phenotyped AIH cohort. Methods: We prospectively collected environmental questionnaires from 358 AIH cases and 563 healthy controls. Response frequencies were compared using logistic regression, adjusting for age at recruitment, sex and education. Results: AIH cases were more likely to ever have a urinary tract infection (UTI) (53.6% vs 33.9%, P < .001) and recurrent UTI (more than 1 per year) (23.5% vs 15.9%, P = .002) compared to controls. Female cases more frequently had ever used oral contraceptives (83.0% vs 73.7%, P = .006), fewer pregnancies (median = 1 vs 3, P < .001) and less often used hormone replacement therapy compared to controls (28.5% vs 60.1%, P < .001). Current smoking was more prevalent in cases (18.9% vs 7.4%, P = .022), yet no difference according to historical smoking behaviours was observed. Finally, cases were less likely to have history of mumps (32.4% vs 53.1%, P = .011) and rheumatic fever (1.1% vs 4.4%, P = .028), but reported higher vaccination frequency to chicken pox (38% vs 28.1%), measles (66.5% vs 39.3%), mumps (58.7% vs 34.6%), rubella (55.3% vs 32.7%), pertussis (59.8% vs 40.1%) and pneumococcus (47.2% VS 39.4%) (P < .002). Conclusions: Environmental factors are important in AIH pathogenesis. Replication of these findings and prospective examination may provide new insight into AIH onset and outcomes.
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    Patients with Autoimmune Hepatitis Report Lower Lifetime Coffee Consumption
    (Springer, 2022) Lammert, Craig; Chalasani, Sai N.; Green, Kelsey; Atkinson, Elizabeth; McCauley, Bryan; Lazaridis, Konstantinos N.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Background: Coffee drinking has been associated with decreased risk of some autoimmune diseases as well liver disease and outcomes. Environmental factors, such as coffee consumption, are yet to be assessed among patients with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH). Aim: We sought to investigate the relationship between coffee consumption and risk of AIH utilizing the Genetic Repository of Autoimmune Liver Disease and Contributing Exposures (GRACE) database. Methods: Lifetime coffee drinking was collected from 358 AIH patients (cases) and 564 volunteers (controls) from primary care visits. Groups were compared utilizing the Wilcoxon rank sum test for continuous variables and the Chi-square test for discrete variables. Logistic regression was used to analyze the effects of different coffee parameters (time, frequency, and cups) after adjusting for age, sex, education, smoking status, BMI, and daily activity. Results: 24.6% of AIH patients never drank coffee compared to 15.7% of controls (p < 0.001), and only 65.6% were current drinkers compared with 77% of controls (p < 0.001). Among "ever" coffee drinkers, AIH patients consumed fewer lifetime cups of coffee per month (45 vs. 47 for controls, p < 0.001) and spent less percentage of life drinking coffee (62.5% vs. 69.1% for controls, p < 0.001). Concurrent inflammatory bowel disease was higher among AIH patients than controls (5.7% vs. 1.2%, p < 0.001), yet did not significantly contribute to "never" coffee drinking status. The relationship between lower coffee consumption and AIH persisted even after controlling for covariates. Conclusions: Coffee consumption is lower among patients with AIH compared to controls.