Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic immune-mediated disease with a heritability of about 90%. In this project, we intend to explore genetic loci associated with AS, and to decipher the pathogenesis of AS. The study aims to improve treatment and potentially prevention of AS both by identifying novel therapeutic targets, and develop methods to improve early diagnosis of the disease, which currently has a mean 10 year diagnostic delay. UK Biobank cohort were used as controls to explore all genetic loci associated with AS disease. The causal variants is potential to be the target to treat AS, and genetic risk scores developed from sequencing data be tested for their positive and negative predictive value in the UK Biobank cohort.
