Host Genetic and Gut Microbial Signatures in Familial Inflammatory Bowel Disease

The family history of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been strongly associated with risk of developing IBD. This study aimed to identify the host genetic and gut microbial signatures in familial IBD.

Genetic analyses using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping and whole exome sequencing were performed to calculate weighted genetic risk scores from known IBD-associated common variants and to identify rare deleterious protein-altering variants specific to patients with familial IBD in 8 Korean families that each included more than 2 affected first-degree relatives (FDRs) and their unaffected FDR(s). In parallel, gut microbial community was analyzed by 16S rRNA sequencing of stools from the sample individuals.

The risk of familial IBD was not well explained by the genetic burden from common IBD-risk variants, suggesting the presence of family-shared genetic and environmental disease-risk factors. We identified 17 genes (AC113554.1, ACE, AKAP17A, AKAP9, ANK2, ASB16, ASIC3, DNPH1, DUS3L, FAM200A, FZD10, LAMA5, NUTM2F, PKN1, PRR26, WDR66, and ZC3H4) that each contained rare, potentially deleterious variants transmitted to the affected FDRs in multiple families. In addition, metagenomic analyses revealed significantly different diversity of gut microbiota and identified a number of differentially abundant taxa in affected FDRs, highlighting 22 novel familial disease-associated taxa with large abundance changes and the previously reported gut dysbiosis including low alpha diversity in IBD and 16 known IBD-specific taxa.

This study identified familial IBD-associated rare deleterious variants and gut microbial dysbiosis in familial IBD.