Evidence map›Paper›PMID 23643380›Full record

ArticleAmerican journal of human genetics2013

Sherlock: detecting gene-disease associations by matching patterns of expression QTL and GWAS.

Xin He, Chris K Fuller, Yi Song, Qingying Meng, Bin Zhang, Xia Yang, Hao Li

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in American journal of human genetics, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 164 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
164citing papers in PubMed, 8 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

164 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

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  14. A review of post-GWAS studies in schizophrenia.Translational psychiatry · 2025
    Review
  15. Article
  16. Genetic and immune landscape of keratoconus: insights from Mendelian randomization analysis.Mammalian genome : official journal of the International Mammalian Genome Society · 2025
    Article
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104 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Xin HeDepartment of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
Chris K Fuller
Yi Song
Qingying Meng
Bin Zhang
Xia Yang
Hao Li

Funding

PHARMACOGENETICS OF MEMBRANE TRANSPORTERSU01GM061390 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · PI GIACOMINI, KATHLEEN M · 2000 to 2009
$29.2M
Rewiring Therapeutic Cells: User-Controlled T Cells and Stem CellsP50GM081879 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · PI LIM, WENDELL A · 2010 to 2017
$19.0M
Pharmacogenomics of Membrane TransportersU19GM061390 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · PI KWOK, PUI-YAN · 2010 to 2014
$16.3M
BMI Bioinformatics Training GrantsT32GM067547 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · PI HERNANDEZ, RYAN D. · 2003 to 2022
$6.6M
Structure function and evolution of yeast transcription networksR01GM070808 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · PI LI, HAO · 2004 to 2012
$2.3M
NIGMS NIH HHS P50 GM081879NIGMS NIH HHS R01 GM070808NIGMS NIH HHS R01GM070808NIGMS NIH HHS T32 GM067547NIGMS NIH HHS U01 GM061390NIGMS NIH HHS U19 GM061390NIGMS NIH HHS U19GM61390
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Genetic mapping of complex diseases to date depends on variations inside or close to the genes that perturb their activities. A strong body of evidence suggests that changes in gene expression play a key role in complex diseases and that numerous loci perturb gene expression in trans. The information in trans variants, however, has largely been ignored in the current analysis paradigm. Here we present a statistical framework for genetic mapping by utilizing collective information in both cis and trans variants. We reason that for a disease-associated gene, any genetic variation that perturbs its expression is also likely to influence the disease risk. Thus, the expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) of the gene, which constitute a unique "genetic signature," should overlap significantly with the set of loci associated with the disease. We translate this idea into a computational algorithm (named Sherlock) to search for gene-disease associations from GWASs, taking advantage of independent eQTL data. Application of this strategy to Crohn disease and type 2 diabetes predicts a number of genes with possible disease roles, including several predictions supported by solid experimental evidence. Importantly, predicted genes are often implicated by multiple trans eQTL with moderate associations. These genes are far from any GWAS association signals and thus cannot be identified from the GWAS alone. Our approach allows analysis of association data from a new perspective and is applicable to any complex phenotype. It is readily generalizable to molecular traits other than gene expression, such as metabolites, noncoding RNAs, and epigenetic modifications.

Indexed as

AlgorithmsModels, GeneticSoftwareCrohn DiseaseDiabetes Mellitus, Type 2Genetic Diseases, InbornGenome-Wide Association StudyHumansQuantitative Trait Loci

Identifiers

PMID23643380
PMCPMC3644637

What OpenQuestion holds

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.