Resumen En los últimos años se han dedicado muchos esfuerzos a la determinación de variantes y genes que pueden ser importantes en la determinaación de la densidad mineral ósea (DMO) y, a su vez, en diversas patologías óseas. Para conseguir esto, la aproximación que ha presentado mayores éxitos ha sido la de los estudios de asociación de genoma completo (GWAS). En particular, en la investigación sobre la biología ósea, se han publicado más de 50 grandes GWAS o metaanálisis de GWAS identificando más de 500 loci genéticos asociados con diferentes parámetros óseos como son la DMO, la resistencia ósea y el riesgo de fractura. Si bien el descubrimiento de las variantes asociadas es un aspecto esencial, es igualmente importante la validación funcional de dichas variantes para dilucidar su efecto y la relación causal que tienen con la enfermedad genética. Al tratarse de un aspecto mucho más lento y tedioso, se ha convertido en el nuevo reto de esta era post-GWAS. Entre los genes que ya se han abordado se incluyen varios de la vía de WNT y en especial el gen SOST, que juega un papel muy importante tanto en la determinación de la DMO poblacional como en enfermedades monogénicas con elevada masa ósea y que ha dado lugar a un nuevo tratamiento contra la osteoporosis. En esta revisión recogemos los principales estudios GWAS con relación a fenotipos del hueso, así como algunos ejemplos de validaciones funcionales para analizar las asociaciones encontradas en los mismos.

Abstract Over the past few years, efforts have been made to determine the variants and genes that may be important to determine bone mineral density (BMD) that, at the same time, are involved in several bone diseases. To achieve this, the approach that has been the most successful of all has been genome-wide association studies (GWAS). In particular, in research on bone biology over 50 different large GWAS or GWAS metanalyses have been published identifying a total of 500 genetic loci associated with different bone parameters such as BMD, bone resistance, and risk of fracture. Although the discovery of associated variants is an essential aspect, the functional validation of such variants is equally important to elucidate their effect, as well as the causal correlation they have with genetic disease. Since it is a much more time consuming and tedious aspect it has become the new challenge of this post-GWAS era. Among the genes that have already been studied several Wnt signaling pathway genes have been included, among them, the SOST gene that plays a crucial role both determining the BMD of the population and monogenic diseases with elevated bone mass giving rise to a new therapy against osteoporosis. In this review we’ll be collecting the main GWAS associated with bone phenotypes, as well as some functional validations undertaken to analyze the associations found in them.

Deafness is a complex disorder affecting 1/1000 infants. In developed countries, more than 50% of deafness cases are thought to have a genetic cause. At least 40 loci for dominant non-syndromic deafness and another 30 for recessive non-syndromic deafness have been described. Mutations in the GJB2 gene are the cause of an important number of cases of non-syndromic recessive deafness but are not as common in non-syndromic dominant deafness cases. We describe here a new dominant mutation (G21R) in the GJB2 gene which causes deafness and has been identified in a three generation Cuban family with dominant non-syndromic congenital sensorineural profound deafness.