Genome-wide association study vs. regional heritability analysis to detect genetic variants underlying individual recombination rate variation in a wild population of Soay sheep.
The genetic architecture of recombination rate variation in a natural population.
1. The genetic architecture of recombination
rate variation in a natural population.
Susan E. Johnston, Jon Slate, Josephine M. Pemberton
@SuseJohnston
2. Why recombine? An evolutionary perspective.
• Recombination can be beneficial.
– Can prevent accumulation of deleterious mutations.
– Can increase genetic variance for fitness.
• Recombination can be costly.
– May reduce genome integrity
– Can break up co-adapted gene complexes.
• Empirical studies have been limited by genetic resources.
Charlesworth & Barton (1996), Felsenstein (1974), Burt (2000), Inoue & Lupski (2002)
3. Understanding recombination rates in the genomics era
• Recombination rates vary from local to global level.
• Recombination rate may co-vary with fitness.
• Individual recombination rate can be heritable.
– Genetic variants have associated with variation
– PRDM9, RNF212, etc.
• But little understanding on if, how and why RR varies
at an individual level in natural populations.
h2 = 0.30
h2 = 0.46
h2 = 0.22
biologyfishman
David Illig
Aimeric Blaud
Kong et al (2004) Nat. Genet.
Baudat et al (2010) Science
Kong et al (2008) Science
Kong et al (2010) Nature
4. St Kilda
• Wild population of Neolithic domestic sheep studied since 1985.
• Extensive life history, pedigree and phenotype information for ~ 7,000 individuals.
• 39,101 polymorphic SNPs typed in 5652 pedigreed sheep
Soay sheep (Ovis aries)
@SoaySheep
5. Pedigree and SNP information can be integrated to find meiotic crossovers.
8. Is recombination rate heritable?
Is recombination rate driven by
particular genetic variants?
Questions
9. Estimating heritability: an animal model approach.
Fixed effects
Sex, Age, Condition
Genomic inbreeding
coefficient
Random effects
Individual identity
Year of Birth
Year of Gamete Transfer
Mother identity
Modelled using ASReml-R (Butler et al. 2009)
Genomic inbreeding/relatedness determined using GCTA (Yang et al. 2010)
Additive genetic
effect
(heritability)
Genomic relationship
matrix using 39K SNP
markers
REML generalised linear mixed model:
*Only Sex and Additive genetic effect were significant.
11. Is recombination rate heritable?
Is recombination rate driven by
particular genetic variants?
Questions
12. 1. Genome-wide association study
N = 1197 (227)
A region on chromosome 6 has a trans-acting, sex-limited effect on recombination rate.
N = 2134 (586)
RNF212
13. biologyfishman
David Illig
Aimeric Blaud
Candidate gene: ring finger protein 212 (RNF212)
• Locus associated with individual
recombination rate variation in
humans, cattle and mice.
• Sexually antagonistic effect on
recombination in humans.
• Strong candidate for sex-limited
effect on recombination rate.
Kong et al (2014) Nat. Genet.
Sandor et al (2012) PLoS Genetics
Reynolds et al (2013) Nat. Genet.
14. Effect sizes at RNF212 in Soay sheep
Autosomalcrossovercount
The most significant SNP explains 35% of heritable variation in females.
SNP ID: oar3_OAR6_116402578
Autosomalcrossovercount
15. • Majority of heritable variation remains unexplained.
– Common phenomenon in GWAS studies.
• GWAS is a single locus approach
– Reduced power to detect rare variants…
– …and variants of small effect sizes.
• One solution: Regional heritability.
– Determine variance explained by defined regions.
– Incorporates the effects of multiple haplotypes.
Single vs. multimarker approaches
Wood et al. (2014) Nat. Genet.
Yang et al (2011) Nat. Genet
Nagamine et al (2012) PLoS One
Santure et al (2013) Mol Ecol
Berenos et al (2015) Mol Ecol
16. 2. Regional heritability analysis.
Regional
additive
genetic
variance
Genomic
additive
genetic
variance
Additive genetic effect
Yang et al (2011) Nat. Genet
Nagamine et al (2012) PLoS One
Examined variance explained within sliding
windows of 20 SNPs (~800kb windows)
17. 2. Regional heritability analysis.
Regional
additive
genetic
variance
Genomic
additive
genetic
variance
Additive genetic effect
Yang et al (2011) Nat. Genet
Nagamine et al (2012) PLoS One
Examined variance explained within sliding
windows of 20 SNPs (~800kb windows)
18. 2. Regional heritability analysis.
Regional
additive
genetic
variance
Genomic
additive
genetic
variance
Additive genetic effect
Yang et al (2011) Nat. Genet
Nagamine et al (2012) PLoS One
Examined variance explained within sliding
windows of 20 SNPs (~800kb windows)
19. N = 2134 (586)
N = 1197 (227)
N = 3330 (813)
RNF212 region
explains 47% of
heritable variation in
females.
No regions
identified in males.
Region with meiotic
recombinant protein
REC8
REC8 region
explains 26% of
heritable variation
in both sexes.
20. N = 2134 (586)
N = 1197 (227)
N = 3330 (813)
RNF212 region
explains 47% of
heritable variation in
females.
No regions
identified in males.
REC8 region
explains 26% of
heritable variation
in both sexes.
The approach may increase chances
of finding new variants…
…but power is likely to be limited in
smaller sample sizes.
Region with meiotic
recombinant protein
REC8
21. Conclusions
• Recombination rate is heritable and has a sexually
dimorphic genetic architecture in Soay sheep.
• Multi-locus approaches may improve variant detection
– But “missing heritability” issue indicates quantitative
genetic framework still relevant.
• Is recombination rate under selection in the wild?
– Ongoing work!