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@ARTICLE{Chen:301902,
author = {Y. Chen and B. P. M. Laevens and T. Lemainque and G. A.
Müller-Franzes and T. Seibel and C. Dlugosch and J.
Clusmann and P.-H. Koop and R. Gong and Y. Liu and N. Jakhar
and F. Cao and S. Schophaus and T. B. Raju and A. A. Raptis
and F. van Haag and J. Joy and R. Loomba and L. Valenti and
J. N. Kather and T. J. Brinker$^*$ and M. Herzog and I. G.
Costa and D. Hernando and K. M. Schneider and D. Truhn and
C. V. Schneider},
title = {{D}eep {L}earning {R}eveals {L}iver {MRI} {F}eatures
{A}ssociated {W}ith {PNPLA}3 {I}148{M} in {S}teatotic
{L}iver {D}isease.},
journal = {Liver international},
volume = {45},
number = {7},
issn = {1478-3223},
address = {Oxford},
publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell},
reportid = {DKFZ-2025-01172},
pages = {e70164},
year = {2025},
abstract = {Steatotic liver disease (SLD) is the most common liver
disease worldwide, affecting $30\%$ of the global
population. It is strongly associated with the interplay of
genetic and lifestyle-related risk factors. The genetic
variant accounting for the largest fraction of SLD
heritability is PNPLA3 I148M, which is carried by $23\%$ of
the western population and increases the risk of SLD two to
three-fold. However, identification of variant carriers is
not part of routine clinical care and prevents patients from
receiving personalised care.We analysed MRI images and
common genetic variants in PNPLA3, TM6SF2, MTARC1, HSD17B13
and GCKR from a cohort of 45 603 individuals from the UK
Biobank. Proton density fat fraction (PDFF) maps were
generated using a water-fat separation toolbox, applied to
the magnitude and phase MRI data. The liver region was
segmented using a U-Net model trained on 600 manually
segmented ground truth images. The resulting liver masks and
PDFF maps were subsequently used to calculate liver PDFF
values. Individuals with (PDFF ≥ $5\%)$ and without SLD
(PDFF < $5\%)$ were selected as the study cohort and used to
train and test a Vision Transformer classification model
with five-fold cross validation. We aimed to differentiate
individuals who are homozygous for the PNPLA3 I148M variant
from non-carriers, as evaluated by the area under the
receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC). To ensure a
clear genetic contrast, all heterozygous individuals were
excluded. To interpret our model, we generated attention
maps that highlight the regions that are most predictive of
the outcomes.Homozygosity for the PNPLA3 I148M variant
demonstrated the best predictive performance among five
variants with AUROC of 0.68 $(95\%$ CI: 0.64-0.73) in SLD
patients and 0.57 $(95\%$ CI: 0.52-0.61) in non-SLD
patients. The AUROCs for the other SNPs ranged from 0.54 to
0.57 in SLD patients and from 0.52 to 0.54 in non-SLD
patients. The predictive performance was generally higher in
SLD patients compared to non-SLD patients. Attention maps
for PNPLA3 I148M carriers showed that fat deposition in
regions adjacent to the hepatic vessels, near the liver
hilum, plays an important role in predicting the presence of
the I148M variant.Our study marks novel progress in the
non-invasive detection of homozygosity for PNPLA3 I148M
through the application of deep learning models on MRI
images. Our findings suggest that PNPLA3 I148M might affect
the liver fat distribution and could be used to predict the
presence of PNPLA3 variants in patients with fatty liver.
The findings of this research have the potential to be
integrated into standard clinical practice, particularly
when combined with clinical and biochemical data from other
modalities to increase accuracy, enabling easier
identification of at-risk individuals and facilitating the
development of tailored interventions for PNPLA3
I148M-associated liver disease.},
keywords = {Humans / Deep Learning / Lipase: genetics / Membrane
Proteins: genetics / Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Male /
Female / Liver: diagnostic imaging / Middle Aged / Fatty
Liver: genetics / Fatty Liver: diagnostic imaging / Adult /
Genetic Predisposition to Disease / Aged / Non-alcoholic
Fatty Liver Disease: genetics / Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver
Disease: diagnostic imaging / Acyltransferases /
Phospholipases A2, Calcium-Independent / deep learning
(Other) / medical imaging process (Other) / single
nucleotide polymorphism (Other) / steatotic liver disease
(Other) / PNPLA3 protein, human (NLM Chemicals) / Lipase
(NLM Chemicals) / Membrane Proteins (NLM Chemicals) /
Acyltransferases (NLM Chemicals) / Phospholipases A2,
Calcium-Independent (NLM Chemicals)},
cin = {C140},
ddc = {610},
cid = {I:(DE-He78)C140-20160331},
pnm = {313 - Krebsrisikofaktoren und Prävention (POF4-313)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-313},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16},
pubmed = {pmid:40478199},
pmc = {pmc:PMC12143367},
doi = {10.1111/liv.70164},
url = {https://inrepo02.dkfz.de/record/301902},
}