Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Translational Psychiatry
Volume
12
Issue
1
PubMed ID
35879306
Publisher
Nature
School
Centre for Precision Health / School of Medical and Health Sciences
RAS ID
45251
Funders
U.S. National Institute on Aging [grant numbers R01AG064955 and R01AG054002]
Abstract
Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) can boost risk prediction in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) beyond apolipoprotein E (APOE) but have not been leveraged to identify genetic resilience factors. Here, we sought to identify resilience-conferring common genetic variants in (1) unaffected individuals having high PRSs for LOAD, and (2) unaffected APOE-ε4 carriers also having high PRSs for LOAD. We used genome-wide association study (GWAS) to contrast “resilient” unaffected individuals at the highest genetic risk for LOAD with LOAD cases at comparable risk. From GWAS results, we constructed polygenic resilience scores to aggregate the addictive contributions of risk-orthogonal common variants that promote resilience to LOAD. Replication of resilience scores was undertaken in eight independent studies. We successfully replicated two polygenic resilience scores that reduce genetic risk penetrance for LOAD. We also showed that polygenic resilience scores positively correlate with polygenic risk scores in unaffected individuals, perhaps aiding in staving off disease. Our findings align with the hypothesis that a combination of risk-independent common variants mediates resilience to LOAD by moderating genetic disease risk.
DOI
10.1038/s41398-022-02055-0
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Hou, J., Hess, J., Armstrong, N., Bis, J. C., Grenier-Boley, B., Karlsson, I. K., ... & Alzheimers Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. (2022). Polygenic resilience scores capture protective genetic effects for Alzheimers disease. Transl Psychiatry 12, 296.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-022-02055-0