• NIDHI SHARMA

      Articles written in Journal of Genetics

    • Beneficial role of D allele in controlling ACE levels: a study among Brahmins of north India

      SHOBHA KUMARI NIDHI SHARMA SUNIL THAKUR PRAKASH R. MONDAL KKALLUR N. SARASWATHY

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      India being a country with vast diversity is expected to have different dietary and life style patterns which in turn may lead topopulation-specific environmental risk factors. Further, the interaction of these risk factors with the genetic makeup of pop-ulation makes it either susceptible or resistant to cardiovascular disease. One such candidate gene is angiotensin convertingenzyme (ACE) for various cardiovascular mechanisms. ACE is the key enzyme of the renin angiotensin aldosterone systempathway which maintains homeostasis blood pressure in the body and any variation in the levels is reported to be associatedwith various complex diseases. The DD genotype is found to increase ACE levels, which is associated with cardiovasculardiseases and decrease in ACE levels are associated with kidney diseases. The aim of this study was to understand the distribu-tion of ACE I/D polymorphism and ACE levels among Brahmins of National Capital Region (NCR) north India, with respectto age and sex ratio distribution. In this study, 136 subjects of which 50 males and 86 females, who were unrelated up to firstcousin, aged 25 to70 years were studied.ACEgene was found to be polymorphic with high frequency of heterozygote (ID)followed by II and DD genotypes. The studied population was found to be in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium with respect toACE I/D polymorphism (P

      =0.55). I allele frequency was found to be higher (0.560) than the D allele (0.44). The medianlevel of ACE was found to be 65.96 ng/mL (48.12–86.24) which is towards lower side of the normal range. ACE levels werefound to be increased among individual having either of the homozygotes that is II or DD and higher frequency of heterozy-gote (ID) is indicative of advantage in the population by maintaining lower ACE levels. The limitation of the present study islow sample size, however, the merit is that the subjects belonged to a Mendalian population with a common gene pool

    • Celiac disease-associated loci show considerable genetic overlap with neuropsychiatric diseases but with limited transethnic applicability

      NIDHI SHARMA PRATIBHA BANERJEE AJIT SOOD VANDANA MIDHA B. K. B. K.THELMA SABYASACHI SENAPATI

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      Clinical and public health research has revealed the co-occurrence of several neuropsychiatric diseases among patients with celiac disease (CD). The significant presence of CD-specific autoantibodies in patients with neuropsychiatric diseases and vice versa are often reported. To explain the genetic basis of such frequent disease co-occurrence and investigate the underlying common pathways/processes, we performed an extensive cross-disease association study followed by supporting in silico functional validation of the leads. Genomewide association study (GWAS) data for CD and eight commonly co-occurring neuropsychiatric diseases from Caucasian populations were analysed, and the shared loci were determined.We performed Immunochip-based fine mapping of these overlapping association signals in anindependent European CD data and tested their cross-ethnic transferability using CD association data from the genetically distinct north Indian population. This study identified 12 shared loci between the two diseases with genomewide significance (P ≤ 5e-8). Of these five loci, namely NFIA, KIA1109, NOTCH4-TSBP1-PBX2, HLA-DQA1 and CSK replicated in an independent Dutch cohort representing European ancestry. Three of these loci, namely NFIA, NOTCH4-TSBP1-PBX2 and HLA-DQA1 that are common between CD, anxiety, migraine and schizophrenia respectively withstood locus transferability test in north Indians. Tissue-specific eQTL analysis of SNPs from transferable loci revealedexpression QTL effects in brain tissue besides the small intestine and whole blood. Pathway analysis and evidence of epigenetic regulation highlighted the potential contribution of these SNPs to disease pathology. The replicable and transferable association of genetic variants from MHC locus and their functional implications suggest the process of antigen presentation and adaptive/innate immune response regulated by non-HLA genes in the locus may dominate the shared pathogenesis of CD and neuropsychiatric diseases. Functional validation of the shared candidate genes is warranted to unravel the molecular mechanism for the co-occurrence of CD and specific neuropsychiatric diseases.

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