Genome-wide association findings from the brains for dementia research cohort

Abstract

The Brains for Dementia Research (BDR) cohort (~3200) is a longitudinal clinicopathological programme, complimented with genetic analysis for the purposes of aetiological investigation into dementia. Here the data from genetic association analyses are presented from the initial collection of DNA from the BDR cohort. The aim of this study was to investigate the preliminary association signals for pathologically confirmed Alzheimer's disease samples compared to controls with no other pathology (n = 520). Genome-wide genotyping was carried out using the NeuroChip platform. Analysis utilised the standard PLINK software for association studies. Genome-wide Bonferroni significant association were observed on chr19 around the APOE/TOMM40 locus across 2 distinct linkage disequilibrium blocks. Eleven of the top 35 association signals have been identified in previous studies, in addition to an intriguing SNP association within the FPR1 gene locus. This study suggests the BDR is genetically comparable to other Alzheimer's disease cohorts and offers an independent resource to verify findings, and additional genetic data for meta-analyses.

Keywords: APOE; Alzheimer's disease; Brains for Dementia Research (BDR); FPR1; GWAS; NeuroChip.