Examination of the Current Top Candidate Genes for AD in a Genome-Wide Association Study

Authors

• T Feulner, Technical University of Munich
• Simon Laws, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
• Patricia Friedrich, Technical University of Munich
• S Wagenpfeil, Technical University of Munich
• S Wurst, Technical University of Munich
• K Kuhn, Technical University of Munich
• M Krawczak, Christian-Albrechts-University
• S Schreiber, Christian-Albrechts-University
• S Nikolaus, Technical University of Munich
• Hans Foerstl, Technical University of Munich
• Alexander Kurz, Technical University of Munich
• Matthias Riemenschneider, Technical University of Munich

Document Type

Journal Article

Keywords

Genome-wide association study, Alzheimer disease, Genetics, Candidate genes, AlzGene

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Faculty

Faculty of Health and Science

School

School of Exercise, Biomedical and Health Science / Centre of Excellence in Alzheimer’s Disease Research

RAS ID

7638

Comments

Feulner, T., Laws, S. , Friedrich, P., Wagenpfeil, S., Wurst, S., Kuhn, K., Krawczak, M., Schreiber, S., Nikolaus, S., Forstl, H., Kurz, A., & Riemenschneider, M. (2009). Examination of the current top candidate genes for AD in a genome-wide association study. Molecular Psychiatry, 15, 756 - 766. Available here

Abstract

With the advent of technologies that allow simultaneous genotyping of thousands of singlenucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the genome, the genetic contributions to complex diseases can be explored at an unprecedented detail. This study is among the first to apply the genome-wide association study (GWAS) approach to Alzheimer disease (AD). We present our GWAS results from the German population for genes included in the ‘Top Results’ list on the AlzGene database website. In addition to the apolipoprotein E locus, we identified nominally significant association signals in six of the ten genes investigated, albeit predominantly for SNPs other than those already published as being disease associated. Further, all of the four AD genes previously identified through GWAS also showed nominally significant association signals in our data. The results of our comparative study reinforce the necessity for replication and validation, not only of GWAS but also of candidate gene case–control studies, in different populations. Furthermore, cross-platform comparison of genotyping results can also identify new association signals. Finally, our data confirm that GWAS, regardless of the platform, are valuable for the identification of genetic variants associated with AD

Access Rights

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