First Genome-Wide Association Study Investigating Blood Pressure and Renal Traits in Domestic Cats

Jepson, R E; Warren, H; Syme, H M; Elliott, J; Munroe, P B

Abstract

Hypertension (HTN) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are common in ageing cats. In humans, blood pressure (BP) and renal function are complex heritable traits. We performed the first feline Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) of quantitative traits systolic BP and creatinine and binary outcomes HTN and CKD, testing 1,022 domestic cats with a discovery, replication and meta-analysis design. No variants reached experimental significance level in the discovery stage for any phenotype. By following up the top 9 variants for creatinine and 5 for systolic BP, one SNP reached experimental-wide significance for association with creatinine in the combined meta-analysis (chrD1.10258177; P=1.34×10-6). Exploratory genetic risk score (GRS) analyses were performed. Within the discovery sample, GRS of top SNPs from the BP and creatinine GWAS show strong association with HTN and CKD but did not validate in independent replication samples. A GRS including SNPs corresponding to human CKD genes was not significant in an independent subset of cats. In summary, we report a novel locus for creatinine and present the first GRS analyses in cats. The findings require validation due to limited sample sizes and genetic coverage, but our results support the utility of GWASs in cats for genetic discovery of complex traits.

Citation

Jepson, R. E., Warren, H., Syme, H. M., Elliott, J., & Munroe, P. B. (2022). First Genome-Wide Association Study Investigating Blood Pressure and Renal Traits in Domestic Cats. Scientific Reports, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05494-3

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 28, 2021
• Publication Date: Feb 3, 2022
• Deposit Date: Feb 22, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 10, 2022
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05494-3
• Public URL: https://rvc-repository.worktribe.com/output/1443979