APOL1 renal risk variants have contrasting resistance and susceptibility associations with African trypanosomiasis renal risk variants have contrasting resistance and susceptibility associations with African trypanosomiasis

  1. Anneli Cooper
  2. Hamidou Ilboudo
  3. V Pius Alibu
  4. Sophie Ravel
  5. John Enyaru
  6. William Weir
  7. Harry Noyes
  8. Paul Capewell
  9. Mamadou Camara
  10. Jacqueline Milet
  11. Vincent Jamonneau
  12. Oumou Camara
  13. Enock matovu
  14. Bruno Bucheton
  15. Annette MacLeod  Is a corresponding author
  1. University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
  2. Centre International de Recherche-Développement sur l'Elevage en zone Subhumide, Burkina Faso
  3. Makerere University, Uganda
  4. Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, France
  5. Programme National de Lutte contre la Trypanosomiase Humaine Africaine, Guinea

Abstract

Reduced susceptibility to infectious disease can increase the frequency of otherwise deleterious alleles. In populations of African ancestry, two apolipoprotein-L1 (APOL1) variants with a recessive kidney disease risk, named G1 and G2, occur at high frequency. APOL1 is a trypanolytic protein that confers innate resistance to most African trypanosomes, but not Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense or T.b. gambiense, which cause human African trypanosomiasis. In this case-control study we test the prevailing hypothesis that these APOL1 variants reduce trypanosomiasis susceptibility, resulting in their positive selection in sub-Saharan Africa. We demonstrate a five-fold dominant protective association for G2 against T.b. rhodesiense infection. Furthermore, we report unpredicted strong opposing associations with T.b. gambiense disease outcome. G2 associates with faster progression of T.b. gambiense trypanosomiasis, while G1 associates with asymptomatic carriage and undetectable parasitemia. These results implicate both forms of human African trypanosomiasis in the selection and persistence of otherwise detrimental APOL1 kidney disease variants.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Anneli Cooper

    Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1159-142X
  2. Hamidou Ilboudo

    Centre International de Recherche-Développement sur l'Elevage en zone Subhumide, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. V Pius Alibu

    College of Natural Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Sophie Ravel

    Unité Mixte de Recherche IRD-CIRAD 177, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Montpellier, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. John Enyaru

    College of Natural Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. William Weir

    Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Harry Noyes

    Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Paul Capewell

    Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Mamadou Camara

    Programme National de Lutte contre la Trypanosomiase Humaine Africaine, Conakry, Guinea
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Jacqueline Milet

    Unité Mixte de Recherche IRD-CIRAD 177, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Montpellier, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  11. Vincent Jamonneau

    Centre International de Recherche-Développement sur l'Elevage en zone Subhumide, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  12. Oumou Camara

    Programme National de Lutte contre la Trypanosomiase Humaine Africaine, Conakry, Guinea
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  13. Enock matovu

    College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Biosecurity, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  14. Bruno Bucheton

    Unité Mixte de Recherche IRD-CIRAD 177, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Montpellier, France
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  15. Annette MacLeod

    Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
    For correspondence
    annette.macleod@glasgow.ac.uk
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0150-5049

Funding

Wellcome (095201/Z/10/Z)

  • Anneli Cooper
  • William Weir
  • Paul Capewell
  • Annette MacLeod

Ministère des Affaires Étrangères

  • Hamidou Ilboudo

World Health Organization

  • Mamadou Camara
  • Oumou Camara

Ministère des Affaires Étrangères

  • Sophie Ravel

Wellcome (99310)

  • Hamidou Ilboudo
  • V Pius Alibu
  • John Enyaru
  • Harry Noyes
  • Mamadou Camara
  • Vincent Jamonneau
  • Enock matovu
  • Bruno Bucheton
  • Annette MacLeod

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: Participants were identified through healthcare providers, community engagement and active field surveillance in association with the national control programmes. Written informed consent for sample collection, analysis and publication of anonymised data was obtained from all participants by trained local healthcare workers. Subjects or their legal guardian gave consent as a signature or a thumbprint after receiving standardised information in English, French or their local language, as preferred, and were free to withdraw from the study at any time. Efforts were made to ensure the engagement of all local stake holders and approval was obtained from local leaders in each study area where appropriate. Ethical approvals for the study were obtained from within the TrypanoGEN Project following H3Africa Consortium guidelines for informed consent, from Comité Consultatif de Déontologie et d'Ethique (CCDE) at the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD; 10/06/2013) for the Guinea study, and from the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST; 21/03/2013) for the Uganda study. Research procedures were also approved by the University of Glasgow MVLS Ethics Committee for Non-Clinical Research Involving Human Subjects (Reference no. 200120043).

Copyright

© 2017, Cooper et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 3,251
    views
  • 498
    downloads
  • 98
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Anneli Cooper
  2. Hamidou Ilboudo
  3. V Pius Alibu
  4. Sophie Ravel
  5. John Enyaru
  6. William Weir
  7. Harry Noyes
  8. Paul Capewell
  9. Mamadou Camara
  10. Jacqueline Milet
  11. Vincent Jamonneau
  12. Oumou Camara
  13. Enock matovu
  14. Bruno Bucheton
  15. Annette MacLeod
(2017)
APOL1 renal risk variants have contrasting resistance and susceptibility associations with African trypanosomiasis renal risk variants have contrasting resistance and susceptibility associations with African trypanosomiasis
eLife 6:e25461.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.25461

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.25461

Further reading

    1. Medicine
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    3. Epidemiology and Global Health
    4. Immunology and Inflammation
    Edited by Jos WM van der Meer et al.
    Collection

    eLife has published articles on a wide range of infectious diseases, including COVID-19, influenza, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria and typhoid fever.

    1. Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    2. Genetics and Genomics
    Hans Tobias Gustafsson, Lucas Ferguson ... Oliver J Rando
    Research Article

    Among the major classes of RNAs in the cell, tRNAs remain the most difficult to characterize via deep sequencing approaches, as tRNA structure and nucleotide modifications can each interfere with cDNA synthesis by commonly-used reverse transcriptases (RTs). Here, we benchmark a recently-developed RNA cloning protocol, termed Ordered Two-Template Relay (OTTR), to characterize intact tRNAs and tRNA fragments in budding yeast and in mouse tissues. We show that OTTR successfully captures both full-length tRNAs and tRNA fragments in budding yeast and in mouse reproductive tissues without any prior enzymatic treatment, and that tRNA cloning efficiency can be further enhanced via AlkB-mediated demethylation of modified nucleotides. As with other recent tRNA cloning protocols, we find that a subset of nucleotide modifications leave misincorporation signatures in OTTR datasets, enabling their detection without any additional protocol steps. Focusing on tRNA cleavage products, we compare OTTR with several standard small RNA-Seq protocols, finding that OTTR provides the most accurate picture of tRNA fragment levels by comparison to "ground truth" Northern blots. Applying this protocol to mature mouse spermatozoa, our data dramatically alter our understanding of the small RNA cargo of mature mammalian sperm, revealing a far more complex population of tRNA fragments - including both 5′ and 3′ tRNA halves derived from the majority of tRNAs – than previously appreciated. Taken together, our data confirm the superior performance of OTTR to commercial protocols in analysis of tRNA fragments, and force a reappraisal of potential epigenetic functions of the sperm small RNA payload.