99-Case Study of Sporadic Aortic Dissection by Whole Exome Sequencing Indicated Novel Disease-Associated Genes and Variants in Chinese Population

Background. In this study, the whole exome sequencing in human aortic dissection, a highly lethal cardiovascular disease, was investigated to explore the aortic dissection-associated genes and variants in Chinese population.Methods. Whole exome sequencing was performed in 99 cases of aortic dissection. All single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), insertions/deletions (InDels), and copy number variations (CNVs) were filtered to exclude the benign variants. Enrichment analysis and disease-gene correlation analysis were performed.Results. 3425873 SNPs, 685245 InDels, and 1177 CNVs were identified, and aortic dissection-associated SNPs, InDels, and CNVs were collected. After the disease correlation analysis, 20 candidate genes were identified. Part of these genes such asMYH11,FBN1, andACTA2were consistent with previous studies, whileMLX,DAB2IP,EP300,ZFYVE9,PML, andPRKCDwere newly identified as candidate aortic dissection-associated genes.Conclusion. The pathogenic and likely pathogenic variants in most of AD-associated genes (FBN1,MYH11,EFEMP2,TGFBR2,FBN2,COL3A1, andMYLK) were identified in our cohort study, and pathogenic CNVs involved inMYH11,COLfamily, andFBNwere also identified which are not detectable by other NGS analysis. The correlation betweenMLX,DAB2IP,EP300,ZFYVE9,PML,PRKCD, and aortic dissection was identified, andEP300may play a key role in AD.