Mapping_gene_environment_interactions_in_macrophages. Mapping_gene_environment_interactions_in_macrophages

Immune cells sense and respond to external stimuli such as pathogens and initiate an inflammatory response. Genetic variants altering the behaviour and responses of immune cells may inform the results of disease association studies and provide an insight into the regulation of immune response. Studies mapping quantitative trait loci (QTL) are usually performed in quiescent or naïve cells and therefore any variants with a condition-specific manner (e.g. those with an effect only detectable in a specific time-point after cell stimulation) are likely to remain undiscovered. So far, only a handful of studies have attempted to study QTL in multiple states and even on those studies the number of states has remained relatively low (<5). Only very recently Horst and colleagues published the largest study to date investigating the effect of host variable (e.g. age, sex, contraceptive use etc.) on protein levels in macrophages stimulated with 19 different conditions (Horst et al, 2016). This project aims to develop a high-throughput experimental platform to detect QTL in a large number of states using iPSC derived macrophages. This data is part of a pre-publication release. For information on the proper use of pre-publication data shared by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (including details of any publication moratoria), please see http://www.sanger.ac.uk/datasharing/