Case study: CR2 xQTL and AD GWAS

This notebook documents the analysis of xQTL case study on a targeted gene, CR2.

• Section 0: Sanity check
• Section 1: Fine-mapping for xQTL and GWAS
• Section 2: Multi-context colocalization with Bellenguez 2022
• Section 3: Refinement of colocalized loci with other AD GWAS
• Section 4: Assessment of multi-context xQTL effect sizes
• Section 5: Multi-context causal TWAS (including conventional TWAS and MR)
• Section 6: Context specific multi-gene fine-mapping
• Section 7: Epigenomic QTL and their target regions
• Section 8: Context focused validation in other xQTL data
• Section 9: Non-linear effects of xQTL
• Section 10: in silico functional studies in iPSC model
• Section 11: Functional annotations of selected loci
• Section 12: Candidate loci as trans-xQTL

Overview

FunGen-xQTL resource contains 67 xQTL contexts as well as 9 AD GWAS fine-mapped genome-wide. The overarching goal for case studies is to use these resource to raise questions and learn more about gene targets of interest.

Overall, a case study consists of the following aspects:

• Check the basic information of the gene
• Check the existing xQTL and integrative analysis results, roughly including
  • Summary table for univariate fine-mapping
  • Marginal association results
  • Multi-gene and multi-context fine-mapping
  • Multi-context colocalization with AD GWAS
  • TWAS, MR and causal TWAS
  • Integration with epigenetic QTL
  • Quantile QTL
  • Interaction QTL
  • Validation:
    • Additional xQTL data in FunGen-xQTL
    • Additional AD GWAS data-set already generated by FunGen-xQTL
  • In silico functional studies
    • Additional iPSC data-sets
  • Functional annotations of variants, particularly in relevant cellular contexts
• Creative thinking: generate hypothesis, search in literature, raise questions to discuss

Computing environment setup

Interactive analysis will be done on AWS cloud powered by MemVerge. Please contact Gao Wang to setup accounts for you to start the analysis.

Please follow instructions on https://wanggroup.org/productivity_tips/mmcloud-interactive to configure your computing environment. Here are some additional packages you need to install after the initial configuration, in order to perform these analysis:

micromamba install -n r_libs r-pecotmr
micromamba install -n r_libs r-bedmatrix

How to Use This Notebook

0. Before you start: Load functions from cb_plot.R and utilis.R, located at /data/interactive_analysis/rf2872/codes/. These functions and resources are packaged to streamline the analysis and ensure everything is as clean as possible. And also the codes for ColocBoost under path /data/colocalization/colocboost/R.
1. Inside of this notebook, use sed -i or Ctrl+F to replace the gene CR2 with the gene you want to analyze.
2. For detailed analysis in some sections, please refer to the corresponding analysis notebooks as indicated. These companion notebooks are available under this same folder. The rest of the tasks can be completed with a few lines of code, as demonstrated in this notebook.
3. Similarly for the companion notebooks you should also use the sed -i or Ctrl+F replacing gene_name (CR2 in this case) with the gene you want to investigate.

While using this notebook, you may need to generate three intermediate files from Sections 1 and 2, which will be useful for downstream analysis:

• a. Section 1:
  • Fine-mapping contexts that indicate shared signals with AD, CR2_finemapping_contexts.rds. This can be used as input for Section 8 the multi-cohort validation step
  • A subset of the xQTL-AD table, Fungen_xQTL_allQTL.overlapped.gwas.export.CR2.rds. This can be used as input for Section 12.
• b. Section 2: A variant list showing colocalization in cohorts we analyzed with ColocBoost, CR2_colocboost_res.rds. this can be used as input for Sections 7, 9, 10, and 12.

Section 0: Sanity check

Check the basic information of the gene

• To gain a preliminary understanding of this gene’s expression—specifically, whether it is cell-specific—can help us quickly determine if our results are consistent with expectations.

Useful websites:

1. check gene function, (immune) cell type specificity, tissue specifity, protein location: https://www.proteinatlas.org
2. check gene position and structure: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/
3. other collective information: https://www.genecards.org

Check the existing results which are inputs to this analysis

source('/data/interactive_analysis/rf2872/codes/cb_plot.R')
source('/data/interactive_analysis/rf2872/codes/utilis.R')
for(file in list.files("/data/colocalization/colocboost/R", pattern = ".R", full.names = T)){
          source(file)
        }
gene_name = 'CR2'

dir.create(paste0('plots/', gene_name), recursive = T)

get basic target gene information

target_gene_info <- get_gene_info(gene_name = gene_name)
target_gene_info

$gene_info

A data.table: 1 x 14

region_id	#chr	start	end	TSS	LD_matrix_id	LD_sumstats_id	LD_sumstats_id_old	TADB_index	TADB_id	gene_start	gene_end	sliding_windows	gene_name
<chr>	<chr>	<dbl>	<dbl>	<int>	<chr>	<chr>	<chr>	<chr>	<chr>	<int>	<int>	<chr>	<chr>
ENSG00000117322	chr1	206120000	208489895	207454229	chr1:205972031-208461272,chr1:208461272-210906847	1_205972031-208461272,1_208461272-210906847	1_205972031-208461272,1_208461272_210906847	TADB_93,TADB_94,TADB_95	chr1_200829148_207464443,chr1_205117782_208795513,chr1_206496146_210857565	207454230	207489895	chr1:197638456-207464443,chr1:200359008-208795513,chr1:200829148-210857565,chr1:205117782-212690103,chr1:206496146-214015867	CR2

$target_LD_ids

A matrix: 1 x 2 of type chr

chr1:205972031-208461272

chr1:208461272-210906847

$target_sums_ids

A matrix: 1 x 2 of type chr

1_205972031-208461272

1_208461272-210906847

$gene_region

'chr1:206120000-208489895'

$target_TAD_ids

A matrix: 1 x 3 of type chr

chr1_200829148_207464443

chr1_205117782_208795513

chr1_206496146_210857565

gene_id = target_gene_info$gene_info$region_id
chrom = target_gene_info$gene_info$`#chr`

Take a quick look for the expression of target gene in ROSMAP bulk data, we don't want them to be too low

source('/data/interactive_analysis/rf2872/codes/utilis.R')
expression_in_rosmap_bulk(target_gene_info)

Section 1: Fine-mapping for xQTL and GWAS

see notebook

region_p

Bellenguez et al GWAS signals has many overlap with CS from other xQTL sources. This motivates us to look further. The figure above shows the ranges of CS to give us a loci level idea. Below, we show the variants in those CS, color-coding the variants that are shared between them in the same color. In particular, AD GWAS signals are also captured by a few xQTL data, although at this point we don't have formal statistical (colocalization) evidences for these observations yet.

pip_p

Section 2: Multi-context colocalization with Bellenguez 2022

This is done using ColocBoost. The most updated version of ColocBoost results are under path s3://statfungen/ftp_fgc_xqtl/analysis_result/ColocBoost/2024_9/

cb_res <- readRDS(paste0("/data/analysis_result/ColocBoost/2024_9/",gene_id,"_res.rds") )

#save colocboost results
cb_res_table <- get_cb_summary(cb_res) 

saveRDS(cb_res_table, paste0(gene_name, "_colocboost_res.rds"))

cb <- plot_cb(cb_res = cb_res, cex.pheno = 1.5, x.phen = -0.2)

pdf('plots/CR2/sec2.colocboost_res.pdf', width = 10, height = 5)
replayPlot(cb$p)
dev.off()

pdf: 2

# colocalized variants
cb_res_table

A data.frame: 1 x 8

colocalized phenotypes	purity	# variants	highest VCP	colocalized index	colocalized variants	max_abs_z_variant	cset_id
<chr>	<dbl>	<dbl>	<dbl>	<chr>	<chr>	<chr>	<chr>
DLPFC; AD_Bellenguez_2022	0.9472933	7	0.6713393	5322; 5210; 5309; 5555; 5573; 5562; 5552	chr1:207577223:T:C; chr1:207510847:T:G; chr1:207573951:A:G; chr1:207629207:A:C; chr1:207633385:G:A; chr1:207630796:A:C; chr1:207627210:T:C	chr1:207577223:T:C	coloc_sets:Y1_Y2:CS1

# effect sign for each coloc sets
get_effect_sign_csets(cb_res)

$`coloc_sets:Y1_Y2:CS1` =

A data.frame: 7 x 3

	variants	DLPFC	AD_Bellenguez_2022
	<chr>	<dbl>	<dbl>
chr1:207577223:T:C	chr1:207577223:T:C	-6.347764	-11.96154
chr1:207510847:T:G	chr1:207510847:T:G	-6.310378	-11.86538
chr1:207573951:A:G	chr1:207573951:A:G	-6.286799	-11.60194
chr1:207629207:A:C	chr1:207629207:A:C	-6.007874	-11.90385
chr1:207633385:G:A	chr1:207633385:G:A	-6.060694	-11.64078
chr1:207630796:A:C	chr1:207630796:A:C	-6.060694	-11.63107
chr1:207627210:T:C	chr1:207627210:T:C	-6.060694	-11.60194

# LD between coloc sets
get_between_purity_simple(cb_res, gene.name = gene_id, path = '/data/colocalization/QTL_data/eQTL/')

Here, different colors refer to different 95% Colocalization Sets (CoS, a metric developed in ColocBoost indicating that there is 95% probabilty that this CoS captures a colocalization event). We only included ROSMAP data for this particular ColocBoost analysis. In this case, we observe cell specific eQTL, bulk sQTL colocalization on ROSMAP data with AD as two separate CoS, suggesting two putative causal signals. We did not detect colocalization with pQTL of statistical significance although from Section 1 there are some overlap with pQTL signals in fine-mapping CS, the overlapped variants in CS have small PIP.

Section 3: Refinement of colocalized loci with other AD GWAS

Here we refine the colocalization with other AD GWAS to iron out any heterogeniety between studies (heterogeniety can come from many sources), to get additional candidate loci from these more heterogenous sources as candidates to study.

AD_cohorts <- c('AD_Jansen_2021', 'AD_Bellenguez_EADB_2022', 'AD_Bellenguez_EADI_2022',
             'AD_Kunkle_Stage1_2019', 'AD_Wightman_Excluding23andMe_2021',
             'AD_Wightman_ExcludingUKBand23andME_2021', 'AD_Wightman_Full_2021')
cb_ad <- plot_cb(cb_res = cb_res, cex.pheno = 1.5, x.phen = -0.2, add_gwas = TRUE, gene_id = gene_id, cohorts = AD_cohorts)

No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.Error : File '/data/GWAS/ADGWAS_sumstats/1_205972031-208461272.RSS_QC_RAISS_imputed.AD_Wightman_Excluding23andMe_2021.sumstats.tsv.gz' does not exist or is non-readable. getwd()=='/data/interactive_analysis/hs3163/GIT/xqtl-paper/AD_targets/CR2'
No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.Error : File '/data/GWAS/ADGWAS_sumstats/1_205972031-208461272.RSS_QC_RAISS_imputed.AD_Wightman_ExcludingUKBand23andME_2021.sumstats.tsv.gz' does not exist or is non-readable. getwd()=='/data/interactive_analysis/hs3163/GIT/xqtl-paper/AD_targets/CR2'
No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.Error : File '/data/GWAS/ADGWAS_sumstats/1_205972031-208461272.RSS_QC_RAISS_imputed.AD_Wightman_Full_2021.sumstats.tsv.gz' does not exist or is non-readable. getwd()=='/data/interactive_analysis/hs3163/GIT/xqtl-paper/AD_targets/CR2'
No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.

pdf('plots/CR2/sec3.colocboost_res_allad.pdf', width = 10, height = 5)
replayPlot(cb_ad$p)
dev.off()

pdf: 2

Section 4: Assessment of multi-context xQTL effect sizes

Option 1: ColocBoost + MASH

Use colocboost variants and check for mash posterior contrast to see if the effect size are shared or specific or even opposite. Advantage is that colocboost result is AD GWAS informed; issue is that marginal posterior effects is not always the joint

Option 2: mvSuSiE

Use mvSuSiE multicontext fine-mapping results --- the bubble plot to check posterior effects. Issue is that we don't have this results yet, and this is limited to one cohort at a time, without information from AD.

We should go for option 1 by default and if we want to make claim about opposite effect size we double-check with mvSuSiE multicontext analysis.

Section 5: Multi-context causal TWAS (including conventional TWAS and MR)

The most updated version of cTWAS analysis are under path s3://statfungen/ftp_fgc_xqtl/analysis_result/cTWAS/

TWAS results

We report TWAS from all contexts and methods from the pipeline. Here we will filter it down to the best performing methods and only keep contexts that are significant.

plot_TWAS_res(gene_id = gene_id, gene_name = gene_name)

MR results

This is only available for genes that are deemed significant in TWAS and have summary statistics available for effect size and standard errors in GWAS, in addition to z-scores --- current version does not support z-scores although we will soon also support z-scores in MR using MAF from reference panel.

cTWAS results

To be updated soon.

Section 6: Context specific multi-gene fine-mapping

A quick analysis: using the xQTL-AD summary table (flatten table)

We extract from xQTL-AD summary table the variants to get other genes also have CS with the variants shared by target gene and AD.

multigene_flat <- get_multigene_multicontext_flatten('Fungen_xQTL_allQTL.overlapped.gwas.export.CR2.rds', sQTL = 'no_MSBB')
multigene_flat

A data.frame: 11 x 6

gene_id	#chr	start	end	gene_name	contexts
<chr>	<chr>	<int>	<int>	<chr>	<chr>
ENSG00000076356	chr1	208244383	208244384	PLXNA2	ROSMAP_AC_sQTL,ROSMAP_PCC_sQTL
ENSG00000123838	chr1	207104232	207104233	C4BPA	ROSMAP_AC_sQTL
ENSG00000123843	chr1	207088859	207088860	C4BPB	MiGA_SVZ_eQTL
ENSG00000143486	chr1	206612464	206612465	EIF2D	Exc_DeJager_eQTL
ENSG00000143858	chr1	202710453	202710454	SYT2	MiGA_SVZ_eQTL
ENSG00000162894	chr1	206923246	206923247	FCMR	MiGA_GTS_eQTL
ENSG00000180667	chr1	207052979	207052980	YOD1	MiGA_GFM_eQTL
ENSG00000196352	chr1	207321531	207321532	CD55	BM_10_MSBB_eQTL,BM_36_MSBB_eQTL,Oli_DeJager_eQTL,Exc_DeJager_eQTL,Oli_Kellis_eQTL,Exc_mega_eQTL,Oli_mega_eQTL,STARNET_eQTL
ENSG00000203710	chr1	207496146	207496147	CR1	Knight_eQTL,BM_10_MSBB_eQTL,BM_22_MSBB_eQTL,BM_36_MSBB_eQTL,BM_44_MSBB_eQTL,Oli_DeJager_eQTL,DLPFC_DeJager_eQTL,PCC_DeJager_eQTL,Oli_Kellis_eQTL,Oli_mega_eQTL
ENSG00000263528	chr1	206470475	206470476	IKBKE	MiGA_GTS_eQTL,ROSMAP_PCC_sQTL
ENSG00000266094	chr1	206507530	206507531	RASSF5	MiGA_GTS_eQTL

Other genes implicated are PROC and HS6ST1 in MiGA cohort which may share causal eQTL with CR2. Further look into the data-set --- using these genes as targets and repeating what we did above for CR2 --- might be needed to establish a more certain conclusion.

Alternatively, we may be able to apply a multi-gene statistical fine-mapping test on CR2 region to find these genes, as you will see in the section below.

A statistically solid approach: mvSuSiE multi-gene analysis

This multi-gene fine-mapping analysis was done for each xQTL context separately. We will need to check the results for all contexts where this gene has an xQTL, in order to identify if there are other genes also sharing the same xQTL with this target gene. We included other genes in the same TAD window along with this gene, and extended it into a sliding window approach to include multiple TADs just in case. You need to check the sliding windows belongs to that gene (TSS) on analysis repo.

sliding_windows <- target_gene_info$gene_info$sliding_windows %>% strsplit(., ',') %>% unlist %>% as.character
sliding_windows

1. 'chr1:197638456-207464443'
2. 'chr1:200359008-208795513'
3. 'chr1:200829148-210857565'
4. 'chr1:205117782-212690103'
5. 'chr1:206496146-214015867'

The most updated version of mvSuSiE multi-gene results are under path s3://statfungen/ftp_fgc_xqtl/analysis_result/mvsusie_multi_gene_test/multi_gene/ Currently it is still WIP. You can revisit this later when we prompt you to. Here is an example for CR2:

mnm_gene <- list()
for (window in sliding_windows) {
    mnm_gene_tmp <- NULL
    mnm_gene_tmp <- tryCatch(
        readRDS(paste0('/data/analysis_result/mvsusie_multi_gene/multi_gene/ROSMAP_multi_gene.', window, '.mnm.rds')),
        error = function(e) NULL
    )
    
    if (!is.null(mnm_gene_tmp)) {
        if(target_gene_info$gene_info$region_id %in% mnm_gene_tmp$mvsusie_fitted$condition_names){
        tryCatch({
            p <- mvsusieR::mvsusie_plot(mnm_gene_tmp$mvsusie_fitted, sentinel_only = F, add_cs = T)
            print(p)  # This ensures the plot is displayed in JupyterLab
        }, error = function(e) NULL)
        } else {
            message('There is mnm result for sliding window ',window,', but not include target gene ', gene_name, ' in CS')
        }
        mnm_gene <- append(mnm_gene, list(mnm_gene_tmp))
    }
}

In this case, there is no statistical evidence for CR2 sharing any of its xQTL with other genes in ROSMAP Microglia data we looked into; although we have not analyzed MiGA this way yet (which showed some potential signals from the quick analysis above).

Section 7: Epigenomic QTL and their target regions

fsusie, see notebook

options(repr.plot.width = 40, repr.plot.height = 40)

 ggplot() + theme_bw() + facet_grid(cs_coverage_0.95 + study + region ~ ., labeller = labeller(.rows = function(x) gsub("([_:,-])", "\n", x)), scale = "free_y") +

      theme(text = element_text(size = 20), strip.text.y = element_text(size = 25, angle = 0.5)) +
     # xlim(view_win) +
      ylab("Estimated effect") +
   #   geom_line(data = haQTL_df %>% mutate(study = "haQTL effect") %>% filter(CS == 5),
    #            aes_string(y = "fun_plot", x = "x", col = "CS"), size = 4, col = "#00AEEF") +
  geom_line(data = effect_of_interest ,
                aes_string(y = "fun_plot", x = "x", col = "cs_coverage_0.95"), size = 2) +  
    geom_point(data = effect_of_interest ,
                aes_string(y = "pip", x = "pos", col = "cs_coverage_0.95"), size = 10) +
    theme(text = element_text(size = 40), strip.text.y = element_text(size = 15, angle = 0.5), 
            axis.text.x = element_text(size = 40), axis.title.x = element_text(size = 40)) +
      xlab("Position") +
      ylab("Estimated\neffect") +
      geom_segment(arrow = arrow(length = unit(1, "cm")), aes(x = gene_start, xend = gene_end, y = 1, yend = 1), size = 6,
                  data = tar_gene_info$gene_info, alpha = 0.3) +
      geom_text(aes(x = (gene_start + gene_end) / 2, y = 1 , label = gene_name), size = 10, 
              data = tar_gene_info$gene_info)+
        geom_point(aes(x = pos, y = pip  ) ,color = "red", data = flatten_table%>%filter( str_detect(study,"AD_") , cs_coverage_0.95 != 0  )%>%mutate(AD_study = study%>%str_replace_all("_","\n" ))%>%select(-study,-region,-cs_coverage_0.95) ) 

Section 8: Context focused validation in other xQTL data

see notebook

add fake version for now, so you don't have to refer to above link

Background: our "discovery set" is ROSMAP but we have additional "validation" sets including:

• STARNET
• MiGA
• KnightADRC
• MSBB
• metaBrain
• UKB pQTL

TODO:

• Get from Carlos WashU CSF based resource (pQTL and metabolomic QTL)

This section shows verification of findings from these data-sets. In principle we should check them through sections 1-6 more formally. In practice we will start with colocalization via colocboost --- since our study is genetics (variant and loci level) focused. We can selectively follow them up for potentially intereting validations. We therefore only demonstrate validation via colocboost as a starting point.

finempping_contexts <- readRDS(paste0(gene_name, '_finemapping_contexts.rds')) # from sec1

finempping_contexts <- get_norosmap_contexts(finempping_contexts)

cb_ad <- plot_cb(cb_res = cb_res, cex.pheno = 1.5, x.phen = -0.2, add_QTL = TRUE, cohorts = finempping_contexts, gene_id = gene_id)

No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.No pvalue cutoff. Extract all variants names.

In conclusion from what's shown above, when we check the association signals in STARNET and MiGA on colocalization established from ROSMAP and AD GWAS, we see additional evidences.

Section 9: Non-linear effects of xQTL

see notebook

APOE interaction

options(repr.plot.width=6, repr.plot.height=6)

ggplot(CR2_int_res, aes(x = variant_id, y = qvalue_interaction)) +
  geom_point(alpha = 0.7, size = 6) +
  labs(title = "qvalue for CR2 csets in interaction association nalysis",
       x = "Gene Name",
       y = "qvalue_interaction",
       size = "qvalue_interaction") +
  theme_minimal(base_size = 14) +
  theme(panel.background = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.major = element_line(color = "grey80"),
        legend.position = NULL,
        axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1))  + ylim(0,1)
  # scale_color_manual(values = colorRampPalette(brewer.pal(8, "Set1"))(length(unique(flat_var$gene_name))))
ggsave('plots/CR2/sec11.interaction_association_CR2_lessPIP25.pdf', height = 5, width = 8) 

In conclusion, there is no interaction QTL with APOE identified.

Section 10: in silico functional studies in iPSC model

see notebook

vars_p

apoe_p

Section 11: Functional annotations of selected loci

see notebook

TODO

• Touch base with Ryan on the snATAC annotations
• Run this by Pavel to see if there are additional comments on how we do this

func_p

Section 12: Candidate loci as trans-xQTL

see notebook

options(repr.plot.width=12, repr.plot.height=6)
if(!is.null(flat_var)){
    ggplot(flat_var, aes(x = gene_name, y = pip, size = pip)) +
      geom_point(alpha = 0.7) +
      labs(title = paste0("PIP values for trans fine mapped Genes in ", gene_name ," csets with AD"),
           x = "Gene Name",
           y = "PIP",
           size = "PIP",
           color = "CS Coverage 0.95 Min Corr") +
      theme_minimal(base_size = 14) +
      theme(panel.background = element_blank(),
            panel.grid.major = element_line(color = "grey80"),
            legend.position = NULL,
            axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1))  
      # scale_color_manual(values = colorRampPalette(brewer.pal(8, "Set1"))(length(unique(flat_var$gene_name))))
    ggsave(paste0('plots/CR2/sec12.trans_fine_mapping_',gene_name,'.pdf'), height = 5, width = 8)
} else{
    message('There are no detectable trans signals for ', gene_name)
}

Creative thinking: generate hypothesis, search in literature, raise questions to discuss

You can now generate some preliminary hypotheses based on the above results. Next, you should search for evidence in the literature to support or refine these hypotheses and identify additional analyses needed to confirm them.