Common variants at 6p21.1 are associated with large artery atherosclerotic stroke

Abstract

Elizabeth Holliday and colleagues report a genome-wide association study for ischemic stroke. They identify common variants at 6p21.1 associated with large artery atherosclerosis (LAA), a major subtype of ischemic stroke. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have not consistently detected replicable genetic risk factors for ischemic stroke, potentially due to etiological heterogeneity of this trait. We performed GWAS of ischemic stroke and a major ischemic stroke subtype (large artery atherosclerosis, LAA) using 1,162 ischemic stroke cases (including 421 LAA cases) and 1,244 population controls from Australia. Evidence for a genetic influence on ischemic stroke risk was detected, but this influence was higher and more significant for the LAA subtype. We identified a new LAA susceptibility locus on chromosome 6p21.1 (rs556621: odds ratio (OR) = 1.62, P = 3.9 × 10−8) and replicated this association in 1,715 LAA cases and 52,695 population controls from 10 independent population cohorts (meta-analysis replication OR = 1.15, P = 3.9 × 10−4; discovery and replication combined OR = 1.21, P = 4.7 × 10−8). This study identifies a genetic risk locus for LAA and shows how analyzing etiological subtypes may better identify genetic risk alleles for ischemic stroke.