For multiple human diseases, genetic exome browsers are made available. These resources allow researchers to download, analyze, and interpret their findings. Agentic AI opens up a new opportunity for re-analyzing these datasets.
Here, I show that we can use LLM-informed priors for human genetic discovery. We apply it to schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, and obesity exome sequencing results.
Using literature-informed priors assembled with LLM assistance, our primary analyses brought eight gene–phenotype associations above the model-based 95% posterior probability threshold. In epilepsy, these included NPRL3 (99.92%) and SYNGAP1 (99.08%) for broad epilepsy, and STX1B and WDR45 (99.18% each) for developmental and epileptic encephalopathy. Their historical support points to distinct biological mechanisms: NPRL3 helps restrain mTOR signaling, with human mutations implicated in focal epilepsy, while SYNGAP1 loss-of-function variants cause neurodevelopmental disorders frequently accompanied by epilepsy. STX1B participates in communication between neurons and has been implicated in fever-associated epilepsy; WDR45 links autophagy – the cell’s recycling machinery- to severe developmental epilepsies. In the body mass index analysis, PCSK1 rose from 67.63% to 97.71%. It encodes a hormone-processing enzyme, and previous human genetic studies connecting impaired PCSK1 function to obesity provide a biological rationale for its elevated prior.
For autism, the additional crossings were SHANK2 (98.11%), NRXN1 (97.96%), and SETD5 (99.54%). SHANK2 and NRXN1 support synaptic organization and communication, while SETD5 regulates developmental gene expression; earlier genetic and functional studies connect these processes to autism and related developmental disorders.