Rationale: The characterization of young adults who develop late-onset diseases may augment the detection of novel genes and promote new pathogenic insights. Methods: We analyzed data from 2,500 individuals of African and European ancestry in the COPDGene Study. Subjects with severe, early-onset chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (n = 70, age < 55 yr, FEV₁ < 50% predicted) were compared with older subjects with COPD (n = 306, age > 64 yr, FEV₁ < 50% predicted). Measurements and Main Results: Subjects with severe, early-onset COPD were predominantly females (66%), P = 0.0004. Proportionally, early-onset COPD was seen in 42% (25 of 59) of African Americans versus 14% (45 of 317) of non-Hispanic whites, P < 0.0001. Other risk factors included current smoking (56 vs. 17%, P < 0.0001) and self-report of asthma (39 vs. 25%, P = 0.008). Maternal smoking (70 vs. 44%, P = 0.0001) and maternal COPD (23 vs. 12%, P = 0.03) were reported more commonly in subjects with early-onset COPD. Multivariable regression analysis found association with African American race, odds ratio (OR), 7.5 (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.3–24; P = 0.0007); maternal COPD, OR, 4.7 (95% CI, 1.3–17; P = 0.02); female sex, OR, 3.1 (95% CI, 1.1–8.7; P = 0.03); and each pack-year of smoking, OR, 0.98 (95% CI, 0.96–1.0; P = 0.03). Conclusions: These observations support the hypothesis that severe, early-onset COPD is prevalent in females and is influenced by maternal factors. Future genetic studies should evaluate (1) gene-by-sex interactions to address sex-specific genetic contributions and (2) gene-by-race interactions.

The African Diaspora in the Western Hemisphere represents one of the largest forced migrations in history and had a profound impact on genetic diversity in modern populations. To date, the fine-scale population structure of descendants of the African Diaspora remains largely uncharacterized. Here we present genetic variation from deeply sequenced genomes of 642 individuals from North and South American, Caribbean and West African populations, substantially increasing the lexicon of human genomic variation and suggesting much variation remains to be discovered in African-admixed populations in the Americas. We summarize genetic variation in these populations, quantifying the postcolonial sex-biased European gene flow across multiple regions. Moreover, we refine estimates on the burden of deleterious variants carried across populations and how this varies with African ancestry. Our data are an important resource for empowering disease mapping studies in African-admixed individuals and will facilitate gene discovery for diseases disproportionately affecting individuals of African ancestry.

A systematic review of the English-language literature was performed to determine the overall benefit of mupirocin therapy in reducing the rate of St

Background There is notable heterogeneity in the clinical presentation of patients with COPD. To characterise this heterogeneity, we sought to identify subgroups of smokers by applying cluster analysis to data from the COPDGene study. Methods We applied a clustering method, k-means, to data from 10 192 smokers in the COPDGene study. After splitting the sample into a training and validation set, we evaluated three sets of input features across a range of k (user-specified number of clusters). Stable solutions were tested for association with four COPD-related measures and five genetic variants previously associated with COPD at genome-wide significance. The results were confirmed in the validation set. Findings We identified four clusters that can be characterised as (1) relatively resistant smokers (ie, no/mild obstruction and minimal emphysema despite heavy smoking), (2) mild upper zone emphysema-predominant, (3) airway disease-predominant and (4) severe emphysema. All clusters are strongly associated with COPD-related clinical characteristics, including exacerbations and dyspnoea (p<0.001). We found strong genetic associations between the mild upper zone emphysema group and rs1980057 near HHIP, and between the severe emphysema group and rs8034191 in the chromosome 15q region (p<0.001). All significant associations were replicated at p<0.05 in the validation sample (12/12 associations with clinical measures and 2/2 genetic associations). Interpretation Cluster analysis identifies four subgroups of smokers that show robust associations with clinical characteristics of COPD and known COPD-associated genetic variants.