Adam Lavertu

All Publications

• Pharmacogenomics and big genomic data: from lab to clinic and back again. Human molecular genetics Lavertu, A., McInnes, G., Daneshjou, R., Whirl-Carrillo, M., Klein, T. E., Altman, R. B. 2018; 27 (R1): R72–R78

  Abstract

  The field of pharmacogenomics is an area of great potential for near-term human health impacts from the big genomic data revolution. Pharmacogenomics research momentum is building with numerous hypotheses currently being investigated through the integration of molecular profiles of different cell lines and large genomic data sets containing information on cellular and human responses to therapies. Additionally, the results of previous pharmacogenetic research efforts have been formulated into clinical guidelines that are beginning to impact how healthcare is conducted on the level of the individual patient. This trend will only continue with the recent release of new datasets containing linked genotype and electronic medical record data. This review discusses key resources available for pharmacogenomics and pharmacogenetics research and highlights recent work within the field.

  View details for DOI 10.1093/hmg/ddy116

  View details for PubMedID 29635477

• Medical relevance of protein-truncating variants across 337,205 individuals in the UK Biobank study NATURE COMMUNICATIONS DeBoever, C., Tanigawa, Y., Lindholm, M. E., McInnes, G., Lavertu, A., Ingelsson, E., Chang, C., Ashley, E. A., Bustamante, C. D., Daly, M. J., Rivas, M. A. 2018; 9: 1612

  Abstract

  Protein-truncating variants can have profound effects on gene function and are critical for clinical genome interpretation and generating therapeutic hypotheses, but their relevance to medical phenotypes has not been systematically assessed. Here, we characterize the effect of 18,228 protein-truncating variants across 135 phenotypes from the UK Biobank and find 27 associations between medical phenotypes and protein-truncating variants in genes outside the major histocompatibility complex. We perform phenome-wide analyses and directly measure the effect in homozygous carriers, commonly referred to as "human knockouts," across medical phenotypes for genes implicated as being protective against disease or associated with at least one phenotype in our study. We find several genes with strong pleiotropic or non-additive effects. Our results illustrate the importance of protein-truncating variants in a variety of diseases.

  View details for DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-03910-9

  View details for Web of Science ID 000430674000001

  View details for PubMedID 29691392

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC5915386

• Frameshift indels introduced by genome editing can lead to in-frame exon skipping. PloS one Lalonde, S., Stone, O. A., Lessard, S., Lavertu, A., Desjardins, J., Beaudoin, M., Rivas, M., Stainier, D. Y., Lettre, G. 2017; 12 (6)

  Abstract

  The introduction of frameshift indels by genome editing has emerged as a powerful technique to study the functions of uncharacterized genes in cell lines and model organisms. Such mutations should lead to mRNA degradation owing to nonsense-mediated mRNA decay or the production of severely truncated proteins. Here, we show that frameshift indels engineered by genome editing can also lead to skipping of "multiple of three nucleotides" exons. Such splicing events result in in-frame mRNA that may encode fully or partially functional proteins. We also characterize a segregating nonsense variant (rs2273865) located in a "multiple of three nucleotides" exon of LGALS8 that increases exon skipping in human erythroblast samples. Our results highlight the potentially frequent contribution of exonic splicing regulatory elements and are important for the interpretation of negative results in genome editing experiments. Moreover, they may contribute to a better annotation of loss-of-function mutations in the human genome.

  View details for DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0178700

  View details for PubMedID 28570605