03 Genetic Variation in Clinic Flashcards
What three ways can we use genetic variation to predict/quantify risk?
Create polygenic risk scores from SNPs across a genome.
Can look for SNPs associated with increased LDL cholesterol leading to FH, who were negative on other tests.
When a patient has a history of breast cancer, but no one mutation, could then look at several SNPs affecting risk.
How can we use genetic variation to predict the response to therapy? Give an example
Pharmacogenomics. Use best drugs, and prevent side effects and adverse reactions. Vemurafenib is a very favourable treatment to metastatic melanoma patients with a BRAF 600 variant.
What’s the third use of genetic variation clinically?
Diagnosis rare, high-impact mendelian disease
How mnay will suffer from a rare disease in the UK?
1 in 17. That’s 1.3 million.
How many different rare diseases have been described?
6000
What proportion of rare diseases are genetic?
80%
What proportion of people with a rare disease die before their 5th birthday?
30%
Who is the reference human genome made up from currently?
13 individuals from buffalo, New York. 66% is 1 male.
Genome Build Hg38 came out in 2013. How many times a year is it updated?
4 times a year
What was the difference between Hg37 and Hg38?
Centromeric regions were added and some gaps were filled in
Who tends to use Hg37 and who tends to use Hg38 leading to some confusion?
The Clinic often uses Hg37. But Variation is mapped against Hg38.
Name these types of genetic variation in increasing size:
S_Vs
small in____s
S___ T____ R____
R__________ insertions
C___N____V___
L____ S_____ R_____
A_____
SNVs
small indels
Short Tandem Repeats
Retroelement Insertions
Copy Number Variants
Large structural rearrangments
Aneuploidy
What things can disrupt genes, their function, and their expression?
SNVs, indels, CNVs, damage, positional changes, epigenetic changes
What are the results of SNVs that are insertions or deletions?
A frame shift, that usually leads to a premature termination codon, leading to either a truncated protein, or nonsense mediated decay.
Why might a substitution SNV be synonymous?
Because the genetic code is degenerate
How can a substitution SNV in a protein coding region be damaging?
By affecting splicing
What are missense and nonsense?
A substitution SNV that leads to either a different amino acid, or a stop codon
Explain Inversion, Unbalanced and Balanced (reciprocal) Translocation in terms of larger chromosomal changes
A chunk of DNA flips.
A chunk of DNA moves elsewhere.
Two chunks of DNA swap places.
What effect can a deletion CNV of a gene have on the other alelle?
It can lead to the manifestation of a disease from a recessive variant on the other chromosome
What can be affected by a chunk of DNA being moved or deleted?
The breakpoints are critical, it can affect the reading frame, regulatory elements, exons, introns etc.