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Iris Heid, Gonçalo Abecasis, Sudha Iyengar and colleagues report the results of a large genome-wide association meta-analysis of macular degeneration based on over 43,000 subjects. They identify 16 new risk loci, including some very rare coding variants.
Anneke den Hollander, Patsy Nishina and colleagues report heterozygous missense mutations in CTNNA1 in three families with butterfly-shaped pigment dystrophy. Ctnna1-mutant mice display a similar phenotype and show increased cell shedding and large multinucleated cells in the retinal pigment epithelium, suggesting defects in intercellular adhesion and cytokinesis.
Leif Andersson, Gregory Barsh and colleagues show that Dun camouflage color in horses is due to TBX3 expression in hair follicles, which causes asymmetric distribution of hair follicle melanocytes and reduced pigment deposition. They find that most domestic horses are more intensely pigmented (non-dun) owing to regulatory mutations impairing TBX3 expression in the hair follicle.
Cris Kuhlemeier and colleagues analyze the genetic basis for floral UV absorbance in Petunia species with either nocturnal or diurnal pollinators. They show that distinct mutations in the MYB-FL gene explain gain or loss of UV absorbance that correlates with bee-to-moth and moth-to-hummingbird pollination transitions.
Matthew Hurles and colleagues sequence the genomes of three multi-sibling families and investigate the rates and spectra of germline mutation. Their analyses suggest that the mutation rate per cell division is higher during early embryogenesis than in post-pubertal spermatogenesis.
Andrew Jackson, Grant Stewart, Bernd Wollnik and colleagues identify TRAIP mutations in three patients with primordial dwarfism. They show that TRAIP is involved in DNA damage response during genome replication and is necessary for efficient cell cycle progression.
Renee Reijo Pera, Vittorio Sebastiano and colleagues identify three human pluripotency-associated transcripts (HPATs) that function in preimplantation development. They find that these three HPATs are also required for efficient nuclear reprogramming and that one, HPAT5, interacts with let-7 to modulate gene expression during reprogramming and differentiation.
Christopher Haiman, Bogdan Pasaniuc, David Reich and colleagues report a major role for low-frequency variation in the risk for prostate cancer. They show that alleles with >1% minor allele frequency contribute an order of magnitude more to risk for prostate cancer than these alleles do to overall genetic variation.
Kyle Gaulton, Mark McCarthy, Andrew Morris and colleagues report fine mapping and genomic annotation of 39 established type 2 diabetes susceptibility loci. They find that the set of potential causal variants is enriched for overlap with FOXA2 binding sites in human islet and liver cells, and they show that a likely causal variant near MTNR1B increases FOXA2-bound enhancer activity, providing a molecular mechanism to explain the effect of this locus on disease risk.
Madeleine Duvic, David Wheeler and colleagues present an integrated genomic analysis of Sézary syndrome. They identify recurrent alterations in key T cell signaling and differentiation genes and observe overexpression of IL32 and IL2RG in nearly all cases.
Ray Ming, Robert Paull, Qingyi Yu and colleagues report the genome sequences of two cultivated pineapple varieties and one wild pineapple relative. Their analysis supports the use of the pineapple as a reference genome for monocot comparative genomics and provides insight into the evolution of crassulacean acid metabolism photosynthesis.
Elliot Stieglitz, Mignon Loh and colleagues report the whole-exome sequencing of diagnostic and relapsed samples from patients with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia. They identify new recurrent mutations for this disease and find that the number of somatic alterations present at diagnosis may be predictive of clinical outcome.
Bernhard Radlwimmer and colleagues report whole-genome bisulfite sequencing of 13 Burkitt lymphomas and nine follicular lymphomas. They find that both types of germinal center B cell lymphomas show global hypomethylation compared to normal germinal center B cell precursors and identify regions of differential methylation that correlate with somatic mutations and differential gene expression.
Seishi Ogawa and colleagues report the results of a large-scale sequencing study of adult T cell leukemia/lymphoma. They find recurrent alterations enriched for T cell receptor/NF-κB signaling, T cell trafficking and other T cell pathways and highlight targets for the development of new therapeutics for this intractable cancer.
John Perry and colleagues report the results of a large genome-wide association study meta-analysis to identify variants influencing age at natural menopause. They identify 54 independent signals and find enrichment near genes involved in delayed puberty and DNA damage response.
John Chambers, Jaspal Kooner, Pim van der Harst, Shyong Tai, Paul Elliott, Jiang He, Norihiro Kato and colleagues performed a genome-wide association study of blood pressure phenotypes in individuals of European, East Asian and South Asian ancestry. They find trait-associated SNPs at 12 loci, some of which are associated with methylation at nearby CpG sites.
Francesco Cucca, Serena Sanna, David Schlessinger, Gonçalo Abecasis and colleagues report genome-wide association analysis results for the levels of A1, A2 and fetal hemoglobin in a large Sardinian cohort. By integrating high-density array genotyping and whole-genome sequencing, they detect 23 associations at 10 loci and observe a wide range of pleiotropic effects of variants across the 3 hemoglobin types.
Gonçalo Abecasis, Francesco Cucca, David Schlessinger, Serena Sanna and colleagues report ~17.6 million genetic variants from whole-genome sequencing of 2,120 Sardinians. They assess the impact of these variants on circulating lipid levels and five inflammatory biomarkers.
Hugh Watkins, Sekar Kathiresan, Ruth McPherson, Martin Farrall and colleagues report the results of a large genome-wide association meta-analysis of coronary artery disease based on 1000 Genomes imputation. They identify ten new risk loci and show that susceptibility to this disease is largely determined by common SNPs with small effect sizes.
Jen Jen Yeh and colleagues apply statistical methods to separate tumor, stroma and normal tissue gene expression signatures from pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma expression profiling data sets. They identify and validate two tumor-specific and two stroma-specific subtypes, which are associated with different clinical outcomes.