Nuclear genetic modulation of tissue-specific mitochondrial RNA processing contributes to common disease risk

Mitochondrial dysfunction is implicated in many common human diseases, yet it remains unclear whether it plays a primary causal role in pathogenesis or arises as a consequence disease-associated change. Moreover, the tissue-specific manifestation of mitochondrial disorders remains poorly understood, despite mitochondria being present in nearly all cell types. To address these questions, we leveraged over 15,000 RNA-sequencing datasets from 49 tissue types in the GTEx project, integrated with matched germline genetic data, to explore the causal impact of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) transcriptional processes on common disease risk. First, we identified 25 peak nuclear genetic variants associated with mtDNA transcript abundance, implicating nuclear genes including FASTKD4 , FASTKD5 and PNPT1 , and revealing highly gene- and tissue-specific regulatory architectures. Next, we developed tissue-specific genetic scores to predict mtDNA-encoded transcript levels and validated their performance in independent datasets. Applying these scores to 377,439 individuals from the UK Biobank, we identified significant associations between predicted mtDNA transcript abundance and numerous common diseases and health-related quantitative traits, many showing marked tissue specificity. These included novel associations between hypertension and aorta-specific mitochondrial transcript abundance, and between Complex I gene expression and idiopathic Parkinson’s disease in neural crest-derived tissues, suggesting a causal role for mtDNA transcriptional processes in these conditions. Our results show that stable, genetically driven variation in mtDNA-encoded expression contributes to complex trait biology, and that nuclear-genetic regulation of mitochondrial RNA processing plays a key role in common disease susceptibility, rendering it a compelling therapeutic target.