Browsing by Author "Jin, Fulai"

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    A locus at 19q13.31 significantly reduces the ApoE ε4 risk for Alzheimer's Disease in African Ancestry
    (Public Library of Science, 2022-07-05) Rajabli, Farid; Beecham, Gary W.; Hendrie, Hugh C.; Baiyewu, Olusegun; Ogunniyi, Adesola; Gao, Sujuan; Kushch, Nicholas A.; Lipkin-Vasquez, Marina; Hamilton-Nelson, Kara L.; Young, Juan I.; Dykxhoorn, Derek M.; Nuytemans, Karen; Kunkle, Brian W.; Wang, Liyong; Jin, Fulai; Liu, Xiaoxiao; Feliciano-Astacio, Briseida E.; Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project; Alzheimer’s Disease Genetic Consortium; Schellenberg, Gerard D.; Dalgard, Clifton L.; Griswold, Anthony J.; Byrd, Goldie S.; Reitz, Christiane; Cuccaro, Michael L.; Haines, Jonathan L.; Pericak-Vance, Margaret A.; Vance, Jeffery M.; Psychiatry, School of Medicine
    African descent populations have a lower Alzheimer disease risk from ApoE ε4 compared to other populations. Ancestry analysis showed that the difference in risk between African and European populations lies in the ancestral genomic background surrounding the ApoE locus (local ancestry). Identifying the mechanism(s) of this protection could lead to greater insight into the etiology of Alzheimer disease and more personalized therapeutic intervention. Our objective is to follow up the local ancestry finding and identify the genetic variants that drive this risk difference and result in a lower risk for developing Alzheimer disease in African ancestry populations. We performed association analyses using a logistic regression model with the ApoE ε4 allele as an interaction term and adjusted for genome-wide ancestry, age, and sex. Discovery analysis included imputed SNP data of 1,850 Alzheimer disease and 4,331 cognitively intact African American individuals. We performed replication analyses on 63 whole genome sequenced Alzheimer disease and 648 cognitively intact Ibadan individuals. Additionally, we reproduced results using whole-genome sequencing of 273 Alzheimer disease and 275 cognitively intact admixed Puerto Rican individuals. A further comparison was done with SNP imputation from an additional 8,463 Alzheimer disease and 11,365 cognitively intact non-Hispanic White individuals. We identified a significant interaction between the ApoE ε4 allele and the SNP rs10423769_A allele, (β = -0.54,SE = 0.12,p-value = 7.50x10-6) in the discovery data set, and replicated this finding in Ibadan (β = -1.32,SE = 0.52,p-value = 1.15x10-2) and Puerto Rican (β = -1.27,SE = 0.64,p-value = 4.91x10-2) individuals. The non-Hispanic Whites analyses showed an interaction trending in the "protective" direction but failing to pass a 0.05 significance threshold (β = -1.51,SE = 0.84,p-value = 7.26x10-2). The presence of the rs10423769_A allele reduces the odds ratio for Alzheimer disease risk from 7.2 for ApoE ε4/ε4 carriers lacking the A allele to 2.1 for ApoE ε4/ε4 carriers with at least one A allele. This locus is located approximately 2 mB upstream of the ApoE locus, in a large cluster of pregnancy specific beta-1 glycoproteins on chromosome 19 and lies within a long noncoding RNA, ENSG00000282943. This study identified a new African-ancestry specific locus that reduces the risk effect of ApoE ε4 for developing Alzheimer disease. The mechanism of the interaction with ApoEε4 is not known but suggests a novel mechanism for reducing the risk for ε4 carriers opening the possibility for potential ancestry-specific therapeutic intervention.
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    Extended genome-wide association study employing the African genome resources panel identifies novel susceptibility loci for Alzheimer's disease in individuals of African ancestry
    (Wiley, 2024) Ray, Nicholas R.; Kunkle, Brian W.; Hamilton-Nelson, Kara; Kurup, Jiji T.; Rajabli, Farid; Qiao, Min; Vardarajan, Badri N.; Cosacak, Mehmet I.; Kizil, Caghan; Jean-Francois, Melissa; Cuccaro, Michael; Reyes-Dumeyer, Dolly; Cantwell, Laura; Kuzma, Amanda; Vance, Jeffery M.; Gao, Sujuan; Hendrie, Hugh C.; Baiyewu, Olusegun; Ogunniyi, Adesola; Akinyemi, Rufus O.; Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium; Lee, Wan-Ping; Martin, Eden R.; Wang, Li-San; Beecham, Gary W.; Bush, William S.; Xu, Wanying; Jin, Fulai; Wang, Liyong; Farrer, Lindsay A.; Haines, Jonathan L.; Byrd, Goldie S.; Schellenberg, Gerard D.; Mayeux, Richard; Pericak-Vance, Margaret A.; Reitz, Christiane; Biostatistics and Health Data Science, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health
    Introduction: Despite a two-fold risk, individuals of African ancestry have been underrepresented in Alzheimer's disease (AD) genomics efforts. Methods: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of 2,903 AD cases and 6,265 controls of African ancestry. Within-dataset results were meta-analyzed, followed by functional genomics analyses. Results: A novel AD-risk locus was identified in MPDZ on chromosome (chr) 9p23 (rs141610415, MAF = 0.002, p = 3.68×10-9). Two additional novel common and nine rare loci were identified with suggestive associations (P < 9×10-7). Comparison of association and linkage disequilibrium (LD) patterns between datasets with higher and lower degrees of African ancestry showed differential association patterns at chr12q23.2 (ASCL1), suggesting that this association is modulated by regional origin of local African ancestry. Discussion: These analyses identified novel AD-associated loci in individuals of African ancestry and suggest that degree of African ancestry modulates some associations. Increased sample sets covering as much African genetic diversity as possible will be critical to identify additional loci and deconvolute local genetic ancestry effects. Highlights: Genetic ancestry significantly impacts risk of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Although individuals of African ancestry are twice as likely to develop AD, they are vastly underrepresented in AD genomics studies. The Alzheimer's Disease Genetics Consortium has previously identified 16 common and rare genetic loci associated with AD in African American individuals. The current analyses significantly expand this effort by increasing the sample size and extending ancestral diversity by including populations from continental Africa. Single variant meta-analysis identified a novel genome-wide significant AD-risk locus in individuals of African ancestry at the MPDZ gene, and 11 additional novel loci with suggestive genome-wide significance at p < 9×10-7. Comparison of African American datasets with samples of higher degree of African ancestry demonstrated differing patterns of association and linkage disequilibrium at one of these loci, suggesting that degree and/or geographic origin of African ancestry modulates the effect at this locus. These findings illustrate the importance of increasing number and ancestral diversity of African ancestry samples in AD genomics studies to fully disentangle the genetic architecture underlying AD, and yield more effective ancestry-informed genetic screening tools and therapeutic interventions.
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    Genome-wide meta-analyses of cross substance use disorders in European, African, and Latino ancestry populations
    (Research Square, 2024-07-16) Lai, Dongbing; Zhang, Michael; Green, Nick; Abreu, Marco; Schwantes-An, Tae-Hwi; Parker, Clarissa; Zhang, Shanshan; Jin, Fulai; Sun, Anna; Zhang, Pengyue; Edenberg, Howard; Liu, Yunlong; Foroud, Tatiana; Medical and Molecular Genetics, School of Medicine
    Genetic risks for substance use disorders (SUDs) are due to both SUD-specific and SUD-shared genes. We performed the largest multivariate analyses to date to search for SUD-shared genes using samples of European (EA), African (AA), and Latino (LA) ancestries. By focusing on variants having cross-SUD and cross-ancestry concordant effects, we identified 45 loci. Through gene-based analyses, gene mapping, and gene prioritization, we identified 250 SUD-shared genes. These genes are highly expressed in amygdala, cortex, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and thalamus, primarily in neuronal cells. Cross-SUD concordant variants explained ~ 50% of the heritability of each SUD in EA. The top 5% individuals having the highest polygenic scores were approximately twice as likely to have SUDs as others in EA and LA. Polygenic scores had higher predictability in females than in males in EA. Using real-world data, we identified five drugs targeting identified SUD-shared genes that may be repurposed to treat SUDs.