Large multi-ethnic genetic analyses of amyloid imaging identify new genes for Alzheimer disease

Amyloid PET imaging has been crucial for detecting the accumulation of amyloid beta (A beta) deposits in the brain and to study Alzheimer's disease (AD). We performed a genome-wide association study on the largest collection of amyloid imaging data (N = 13,409) to date, across multiple ethnicities from multicenter cohorts to identify variants associated with brain amyloidosis and AD risk. We found a strong APOE signal on chr19q.13.32 (top SNP: APOE e4; rs429358; beta = 0.35, SE = 0.01, P = 6.2 x 10(-311), MAF = 0.19), driven by APOE e4, and five additional novel associations (APOE epsilon 2/rs7412; rs73052335/rs5117, rs1081105, rs438811, and rs4420638) independent of APOE e4. APOE e4 and epsilon 2 showed race specific effect with stronger association in Non-Hispanic Whites, with the lowest association in Asians. Besides the APOE, we also identified three other genome-wide loci: ABCA7 (rs12151021/chr19p.13.3; beta = 0.07, SE = 0.01, P = 9.2 x 10(-09), MAF = 0.32), CR1 (rs6656401/chr1q.32.2; beta = 0.1, SE = 0.02, P = 2.4 x 10(-10), MAF = 0.18) and FERMT2 locus (rs117834516/chr14q.22.1; beta = 0.16, SE = 0.03, P = 1.1 x 10(-09), MAF = 0.06) that all colocalized with AD risk. Sex-stratified analyses identified two novel female-specific signals on chr5p.14.1 (rs529007143, beta = 0.79, SE = 0.14, P = 1.4 x 10(-08), MAF = 0.006, sex-interaction P = 9.8 x 10(-07)) and chr11p.15.2 (rs192346166, beta = 0.94, SE = 0.17, P = 3.7 x 10(-08), MAF = 0.004, sex-interaction P = 1.3 x 10(-03)). We also demonstrated that the overall genetic architecture of brain amyloidosis overlaps with that of AD, Frontotemporal Dementia, stroke, and brain structure-related complex human traits. Overall, our results have important implications when estimating the individual risk to a population level, as race and sex will needed to be taken into account. This may affect participant selection for future clinical trials and therapies.

Automated summary

In this study, we performed a genome-wide association study on a large collection of amyloid imaging data to identify genetic variants associated with brain amyloidosis and Alzheimer's disease risk. We found strong associations with the APOE gene as well as three other loci, and also observed that race and sex play a role in these associations. These findings have important implications for future clinical trials and therapies.