Browsing by Author "Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC)"

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    Genome-wide association identifies the first risk loci for psychosis in Alzheimer disease
    (Springer Nature, 2021) DeMichele-Sweet, Mary Ann A.; Klei, Lambertus; Creese, Byron; Harwood, Janet C.; Weamer, Elise A.; McClain, Lora; Sims, Rebecca; Hernandez, Isabel; Moreno-Grau, Sonia; Tárraga, Lluís; Boada, Mercè; Alarcón-Martín, Emilio; Valero, Sergi; NIA-LOAD Family Based Study Consortium; Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC); Liu, Yushi; Hooli, Basavaraj; Aarsland, Dag; Selbaek, Geir; Bergh, Sverre; Rongve, Arvid; Saltvedt, Ingvild; Skjellegrind, Håvard K.; Engdahl, Bo; Stordal, Eystein; Andreassen, Ole A.; Djurovic, Srdjan; Athanasiu, Lavinia; Seripa, Davide; Borroni, Barbara; Albani, Diego; Forloni, Gianluigi; Mecocci, Patrizia; Serretti, Alessandro; De Ronchi, Diana; Politis, Antonis; Williams, Julie; Mayeux, Richard; Foroud, Tatiana; Ruiz, Agustín; Ballard, Clive; Holmans, Peter; Lopez, Oscar L.; Kamboh, M. Ilyas; Devlin, Bernie; Sweet, Robert A.; Medical and Molecular Genetics, School of Medicine
    Psychotic symptoms, defined as the occurrence of delusions or hallucinations, are frequent in Alzheimer disease (AD with psychosis, AD + P). AD + P affects ~50% of individuals with AD, identifies a subgroup with poor outcomes, and is associated with a greater degree of cognitive impairment and depressive symptoms, compared to subjects without psychosis (AD - P). Although the estimated heritability of AD + P is 61%, genetic sources of risk are unknown. We report a genome-wide meta-analysis of 12,317 AD subjects, 5445 AD + P. Results showed common genetic variation accounted for a significant portion of heritability. Two loci, one in ENPP6 (rs9994623, O.R. (95%CI) 1.16 (1.10, 1.22), p = 1.26 × 10-8) and one spanning the 3'-UTR of an alternatively spliced transcript of SUMF1 (rs201109606, O.R. 0.65 (0.56-0.76), p = 3.24 × 10-8), had genome-wide significant associations with AD + P. Gene-based analysis identified a significant association with APOE, due to the APOE risk haplotype ε4. AD + P demonstrated negative genetic correlations with cognitive and educational attainment and positive genetic correlation with depressive symptoms. We previously observed a negative genetic correlation with schizophrenia; instead, we now found a stronger negative correlation with the related phenotype of bipolar disorder. Analysis of polygenic risk scores supported this genetic correlation and documented a positive genetic correlation with risk variation for AD, beyond the effect of ε4. We also document a small set of SNPs likely to affect risk for AD + P and AD or schizophrenia. These findings provide the first unbiased identification of the association of psychosis in AD with common genetic variation and provide insights into its genetic architecture.
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    Sex differences in the genetic architecture of cognitive resilience to Alzheimer's disease
    (Oxford University Press, 2022) Eissman, Jaclyn M.; Dumitrescu, Logan; Mahoney, Emily R.; Smith, Alexandra N.; Mukherjee, Shubhabrata; Lee, Michael L.; Scollard, Phoebe; Choi, Seo Eun; Bush, William S.; Engelman, Corinne D.; Lu, Qiongshi; Fardo, David W.; Trittschuh, Emily H.; Mez, Jesse; Kaczorowski, Catherine C.; Hernandez Saucedo, Hector; Widaman, Keith F.; Buckley, Rachel F.; Properzi, Michael J.; Mormino, Elizabeth C.; Yang, Hyun Sik; Harrison, Theresa M.; Hedden, Trey; Nho, Kwangsik; Andrews, Shea J.; Tommet, Douglas; Hadad, Niran; Sanders, R. Elizabeth; Ruderfer, Douglas M.; Gifford, Katherine A.; Zhong, Xiaoyuan; Raghavan, Neha S.; Vardarajan, Badri N.; Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI); Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC); A4 Study Team; Pericak-Vance, Margaret A.; Farrer, Lindsay A.; Wang, Li San; Cruchaga, Carlos; Schellenberg, Gerard D.; Cox, Nancy J.; Haines, Jonathan L.; Keene, C. Dirk; Saykin, Andrew J.; Larson, Eric B.; Sperling, Reisa A.; Mayeux, Richard; Cuccaro, Michael L.; Bennett, David A.; Schneider, Julie A.; Crane, Paul K.; Jefferson, Angela L.; Hohman, Timothy J.; Radiology and Imaging Sciences, School of Medicine
    Approximately 30% of elderly adults are cognitively unimpaired at time of death despite the presence of Alzheimer's disease neuropathology at autopsy. Studying individuals who are resilient to the cognitive consequences of Alzheimer's disease neuropathology may uncover novel therapeutic targets to treat Alzheimer's disease. It is well established that there are sex differences in response to Alzheimer's disease pathology, and growing evidence suggests that genetic factors may contribute to these differences. Taken together, we sought to elucidate sex-specific genetic drivers of resilience. We extended our recent large scale genomic analysis of resilience in which we harmonized cognitive data across four cohorts of cognitive ageing, in vivo amyloid PET across two cohorts, and autopsy measures of amyloid neuritic plaque burden across two cohorts. These data were leveraged to build robust, continuous resilience phenotypes. With these phenotypes, we performed sex-stratified [n (males) = 2093, n (females) = 2931] and sex-interaction [n (both sexes) = 5024] genome-wide association studies (GWAS), gene and pathway-based tests, and genetic correlation analyses to clarify the variants, genes and molecular pathways that relate to resilience in a sex-specific manner. Estimated among cognitively normal individuals of both sexes, resilience was 20-25% heritable, and when estimated in either sex among cognitively normal individuals, resilience was 15-44% heritable. In our GWAS, we identified a female-specific locus on chromosome 10 [rs827389, β (females) = 0.08, P (females) = 5.76 × 10-09, β (males) = -0.01, P(males) = 0.70, β (interaction) = 0.09, P (interaction) = 1.01 × 10-04] in which the minor allele was associated with higher resilience scores among females. This locus is located within chromatin loops that interact with promoters of genes involved in RNA processing, including GATA3. Finally, our genetic correlation analyses revealed shared genetic architecture between resilience phenotypes and other complex traits, including a female-specific association with frontotemporal dementia and male-specific associations with heart rate variability traits. We also observed opposing associations between sexes for multiple sclerosis, such that more resilient females had a lower genetic susceptibility to multiple sclerosis, and more resilient males had a higher genetic susceptibility to multiple sclerosis. Overall, we identified sex differences in the genetic architecture of resilience, identified a female-specific resilience locus and highlighted numerous sex-specific molecular pathways that may underly resilience to Alzheimer's disease pathology. This study illustrates the need to conduct sex-aware genomic analyses to identify novel targets that are unidentified in sex-agnostic models. Our findings support the theory that the most successful treatment for an individual with Alzheimer's disease may be personalized based on their biological sex and genetic context.
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    Sex-specific genetic predictors of memory, executive function, and language performance
    (Wiley, 2022) Eissman, Jaclyn M.; Smith, Alexandra N.; Mukherjee, Shubhabrata; Lee, Michael L.; Choi, Seo-Eun; Scollard, Phoebe; Trittschuh, Emily H.; Mez, Jesse B.; Bush, William S.; Engelman, Corinne D.; Lu, Qiongshi; Fardo, David W.; Widaman, Keith F.; Buckley, Rachel F.; Mormino, Elizabeth C.; Kunkle, Brian W.; Naj, Adam C.; Clark, Lindsay R.; Gifford, Katherine A.; Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI); Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC); A4 Study Team; The Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP); Cuccaro, Michael L.; Cruchaga, Carlos; Pericak-Vance, Margaret A.; Farrer, Lindsay A.; Wang, Li-San; Schellenberg, Gerard D.; Haines, Jonathan L.; Jefferson, Angela L.; Johnson, Sterling C.; Kukull, Walter A.; Albert, Marilyn S.; Keene, C. Dirk; Saykin, Andrew J.; Larson, Eric B.; Sperling, Reisa A.; Mayeux, Richard; Thompson, Paul M.; Martin, Eden R.; Bennett, David A.; Barnes, Lisa L.; Schneider, Julie A.; Crane, Paul K.; Hohman, Timothy J.; Dumitrescu, Logan; Radiology and Imaging Sciences, School of Medicine
    Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is more prevalent in women than men, and robust evidence shows sex differences in the biological response to the AD neuropathological cascade. However, there is a lack of large-scale genetic studies on sex-specific genetic predictors of AD-related cognitive outcomes. Thus, we sought to elucidate the sex-specific genetic etiology of memory, executive function, and language performance. Method: This study included six cohorts of cognitive aging (Nmales=7,267, Nfemales=9,518). We applied psychometric approaches to build harmonized memory, executive function, and language composite scores. Next, for all domains, we calculated slopes from the cognitive scores (two or more timepoints) with linear mixed effects models. Then we performed sex-stratified and sex-interaction GWAS on these phenotypes, covarying for baseline age and the first three genetic principal components. We meta-analyzed across cohorts with a fixed-effects model. Sensitivity analyses for all models restricted the sample to cognitively unimpaired individuals. Result: In addition to well-established associations with cognition at the APOE locus, we identified three genetic loci that showed sex-specific effects with cognition. A chromosome 16 locus (rs114106271), a splicing-quantitative trait locus for RP11-152O14.4 and LINC02180 in the testis (GTEx), associated with baseline memory performance in men (β=0.13, P=2.40×10-8; PInteraction=8.96×10-6; Figures 1-2) but not in women (β=-0.01, P=0.76). A chromosome 14 locus (rs34074573), an expression-quantitative trait locus (GTEx) for HOMEZ (a homeobox gene), and for BCL2L2 (a previously reported AD risk gene), associated with longitudinal memory performance in men (β=-0.01, P=4.15×10-8; PInteraction=5.83×10-7; Figures 3-4) but not in women (β=0.001, P=0.09). Finally, a chromosome 6 locus (rs9382966) associated with longitudinal language performance in men with near genome-wide significance (β=-0.004, P=6.29×10-8; PInteraction=2.01×10-4) but not in women (β=-0.0003, P=0.61). Conclusion: Our results highlight some key sex differences in the genetic architecture of cognitive outcomes. Findings further suggest that some sex-specific genetic predictors have domain-specific associations, providing an exciting opportunity to better understand the molecular basis of memory, executive function, and language through genomic analysis. Although our findings need to be replicated, our GWAS analyses highlight the contribution of sex-specific genetic predictors beyond the APOE locus in conferring risk for late-life cognitive decline.