Study of variants in genes implicated in rare familial migraine syndromes and their association with migraine in 200,000 exome-sequenced UK Biobank participants

Background: A number of genes have been implicated in rare familial syndromes which have migraine as part of their phenotype but these genes have not previously been implicated in the common form of migraine.

Methods: Among exome-sequenced participants in the UK Biobank, we identified 7194 migraine cases with the remaining 193,433 participants classified as controls. We investigated rare variants in 10 genes previously reported to be implicated in conditions with migraine as a prominent part of the phenotype and carried out gene- and variant-based tests for association.

Results: We found no evidence for association of these genes or variants with the common form of migraine seen in our subjects. In particular, a frameshift variant in KCNK18, p.(Phe139Trpfs*24), which had been shown to segregate with migraine with aura in a multiply affected pedigree, was found in 196 (0.10%) controls as well as in 10 (0.14%) cases (χ² = 0.96, 1 df, p = 0.33).

Conclusions: Since there is no other reported evidence to implicate KCNK18, we conclude that this gene and its product, TRESK, should no longer be regarded as being involved in migraine aetiology. Overall, we do not find that rare, functional variants in genes previously implicated to be involved in familial syndromes including migraine as part of the phenotype make a contribution to the commoner forms of migraine observed in this population.