Genetically regulated gene expression underlies lipid traits in Hispanic cohorts

Plasma lipid levels are risk factors for cardiovascular disease, a leading cause of death worldwide. While many studies have been conducted on lipid genetics, they mainly comprise individuals of European ancestry and thus their transferability to diverse populations is unclear. We performed genome-wide (GWAS) and imputed transcriptome-wide association studies of four lipid traits in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos cohort (n = 11,103), tested the findings for replication in the Hispanic population in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA HIS, n = 1,297), and compared the results to the larger, predominantly European ancestry meta-analysis by the Global Lipids Genetic Consortium (GLGC, n = 196,475). GWAS revealed both known and potentially novel SNPs. In the imputed transcriptome-wide association study in multiple tissues and ethnicities, we found 101 significant gene-phenotype associations (P -6 ) with 36 unique significant genes, many of which occurred across multiple phenotypes, tissues, and multi-ethnic populations. We found 21 of the 36 significant genes are novel for any lipid association. Of these, 15/21 replicated in MESA HIS, 14/21 replicated in GLGC, and 10/21 associations replicated in both cohorts (P