A PheWAS approach to identify associations of GBA1 variants with comprehensive phenotypes beyond neurological...

Given the established association between numerous GBA1 variants and specific neurological diseases, we extended the exploration by a phenome-wide association study to assess the impact of GBA1 variants on a wider spectrum of health-related traits. We identified 41 phenotypes associated with GBA1 variants, 39 of which were unreported, including 21 non-neurological and 20 neurological phenotypes. Based on variant-level association tests, we found beyond the neurological phenotypes particularly decreased gray-white matter contrast measures across 13 distinct brain regions, the non-coding variant rs9628662 was associated with six non-neurological traits such as hypermetropia. Another non-coding variant rs3115534 showed associations with eight biomarkers of multiple categories, and an increased risk of benign digestive neoplasms. Notably, compared to protein-coding variant p.T408M, the rs3115534 had opposing effects on three hematological biomarkers. Additionally, gene-level association analyses revealed significant associations with three neurological diseases including Parkinson's disease. The findings demonstrated that GBA1 variants significantly impact various health-related traits.