Endometriosis is a common condition associated with debilitating pelvic pain and infertility. A genome-wide association study meta-analysis, including 60,674 cases and 701,926 controls of European and East Asian descent, identified 42 genome-wide significant loci comprising 49 distinct association signals. Effect sizes were largest for stage 3/4 disease, driven by ovarian endometriosis. Identified signals explained up to 5.01% of disease variance and regulated expression or methylation of genes in endometrium and blood, many of which were associated with pain perception/maintenance (SRP14/BMF, GDAP1, MLLT10, BSN and NGF). We observed significant genetic correlations between endometriosis and 11 pain conditions, including migraine, back and multisite chronic pain (MCP), as well as inflammatory conditions, including asthma and osteoarthritis. Multitrait genetic analyses identified substantial sharing of variants associated with endometriosis and MCP/migraine. Targeted investigations of genetically regulated mechanisms shared between endometriosis and other pain conditions are needed to aid the development of new treatments and facilitate early symptomatic intervention.
Institut(e)Institute of Translational Genomics (ITG)
FörderungenNICHD National Institutes of Health Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation Wellcome Trust Case-Control Consortium Cerylid Biosciences (Melbourne) Cooperative Research Centre for Discovery of Genes for Common Human Diseases (CRC) National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorates Medical Research Council UK Wellcome Trust Scottish Funding Council Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation King's College London National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) European Union Chronic Disease Research Foundation (CDRF) MRC University Unit Programme Grant Wellbeing of Women Gates Foundation NIH NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford Li Ka Shing Foundation Novo Nordisk Foundation Nezhat Family Foundation Sigrid Juselius Foundation NIH NICHD European Regional Development Fund Polish POIG grant MSCA-RISE-2020 project TRENDO Enter-prise Estonia European Commission Estonian Research Council Versus Arthritis Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Australian Government Medical Research Future Fund Research Grant ARC NHMRC EU Wellbeing of Women UK Academy of Finland