Genetics of Alzheimer's disease: where we are, and where we are going

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) has a very strong genetic component, whose characterization has become an essential part of efforts to understand the pathophysiological processes of the disease. Thanks to the systematic use of high-throughput approaches over the last 10 years, more than 40 genes/loci have been linked to the AD risk. Although some of these signals are likely to be false positives, this genetic knowledge has shed new light on the pathogenesis of AD and, in particular, the major role of microglia. However, our knowledge of the genetics of AD is far from complete, and larger and more diverse genetic studies are required. Lastly, post-GWAS analyses will be needed to make sense of this genetic information without focusing too much on what we think we know about the disease.