Association study identified biologically relevant receptor genes with synergistic functions in celiac disease

Receptors are essential mediators of cellular physiology, which facilitate molecular and cellular cross-talk with the environment. Nearly 20% of the all known celiac disease (CD) genes are receptors by function. We hypothesized that novel biologically relevant susceptibility receptor genes act in synergy in CD pathogenesis. We attempted to identify novel receptor genes in CD by re-analyzing published Illumina Immunochip dense genotype data for a north Indian and a European (Dutch) cohort. North Indian dataset was screened for 269 known receptor genes. Association statistics for SNPs were considered with minor allele frequency >15% and association P ≤ 0.005 to attend desired study power. Identified markers were tested for cross-ethnic replication in a European CD dataset. Markers were analyzed in-silico to explain their functional significance in CD. Six novel SNPs from MOG (rs29231, p = 1.21e-11), GABBR1 (rs3025643, p = 1.60e-7), OR2H2 (rs1233388, p = 0.0002), ABCF1 (rs9262119, p = 0.0005), ADRA1A (rs10102024, p = 0.003), and ACVR2A (rs7560426, p = 0.004) were identified in north Indians, of which three genes namely, GABBR1 (rs3025643, p = 5.38e-8), OR2H2 (rs1233388, p = 3.29e-5) and ABCF1 (rs9262119, p = 0.0002) were replicated in Dutch. Tissue specific functional annotation, potential epigenetic regulation, co-expression, protein-protein interaction and pathway enrichment analyses indicated differential expression and synergistic function of key genes that could alter cellular homeostasis, ubiquitination mediated phagosome pathway and cellular protein processing to contribute for CD. At present multiple therapeutic compounds/drugs are available targeting GABBR1 and ADRA1A, which could be tested for their effectiveness against CD in controlled drug trials.