Cited by 68Alzheimer's disease research and treatmentsDementia and Cognitive Impairment ResearchGenetic Associations and Epidemiology

Immune response and endocytosis pathways are associated with the resilience against Alzheimer’s disease

Open access
Tesi, Niccolò, van der Lee, Sven J., Hulsman, Marc, Jansen, Iris E., Stringa, Najada, van Schoor, Natasja M., Scheltens, Philip, van der Flier, Wiesje M. +3 more·2020·Translational Psychiatry

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

Developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is influenced by multiple genetic variants that are involved in five major AD-pathways. Per individual, these pathways may differentially contribute to the modification of the AD-risk. The pathways involved in the resilience against AD have thus far been poorly addressed. Here, we investigated to what extent each molecular mechanism associates with (i) the increased risk of AD and (ii) the resilience against AD until extreme old age, by comparing pathway-specific polygenic risk scores (pathway-PRS). We used 29 genetic variants associated with AD to develop pathway-PRS for five major pathways involved in AD. We developed an integrative framework that allows multiple genes to associate with a variant, and multiple pathways to associate with a gene. We studied pathway-PRS in the Amsterdam Dementia Cohort of well-phenotyped AD patients ( N = 1895), Dutch population controls from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam ( N = 1654) and our unique 100-plus Study cohort of cognitively healthy centenarians who avoided AD ( N = 293). Last, we estimated the contribution of each pathway to the genetic risk of AD in the general population. All pathway-PRS significantly associated with increased AD-risk and (in the opposite direction) with resilience against AD (except for angiogenesis , p < 0.05). The pathway that contributed most to the overall modulation of AD-risk was β-amyloid metabolism (29.6%), which was driven mainly by APOE -variants. After excluding APOE variants, all pathway-PRS associated with increased AD-risk (except for angiogenesis, p < 0.05), while specifically immune response ( p = 0.003) and endocytosis ( p = 0.0003) associated with resilience against AD. Indeed, the variants in these latter two pathways became the main contributors to the overall modulation of genetic risk of AD (45.5% and 19.2%, respectively). The genetic variants associated with the resilience against AD indicate which pathways are involved with maintained cognitive functioning until extreme ages. Our work suggests that a favorable immune response and a maintained endocytosis pathway might be involved in general neuro-protection, which highlight the need to investigate these pathways, next to β-amyloid metabolism.

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  • Phagocytosis and endocytosis might underlie synaptic resilience in AsymAD individuals.

    “previous evidence suggest that phagocytosis and endocytosis might underlie synaptic resilience in AsymAD individuals [92, 98].”

    From Enhanced microglial dynamics and a paucity of tau seeding in the amyloid plaque microenvironment contribute to cognitive resilience in Alzheimer’s disease (2024) · cites this paper as [92]

    The Discussion links immune response and endocytosis to escaping AD and suggests that dysregulation of these pathways may favor synapse engulfment. But the study examines cognitively healthy centenarians, not AsymAD individuals, and does not establish phagocytosis and endocytosis as mechanisms of synaptic resilience in that group. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Genetic variants of genes related to autophagy functions are involved in resilience against AD neuropathology.

    “However, it has been reported that genetic variants of genes related to autophagy functions are involved in resilience against AD neuropathology [82, 92, 107].”

    From Enhanced microglial dynamics and a paucity of tau seeding in the amyloid plaque microenvironment contribute to cognitive resilience in Alzheimer’s disease (2024) · cites this paper as [92]

    The Discussion (page unavailable) associates genetic variants in immune-response and endocytosis pathways with resilience against AD in cognitively healthy centenarians. Autophagy was not among the five pathways studied, and resilience was assessed through avoidance of AD rather than resistance to measured AD neuropathology. Those specific parts of the claim are not supported by this paper. (LLM, conf=0.84)

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Authors
Tesi, N., van der Lee, S. J., Hulsman, M., Jansen, I. E., Stringa, N., van Schoor, N. M., Scheltens, P., van der Flier, W. M., Huisman, M., Reinders, M. J. T., & Holstege, H.
Affiliations
  • Amsterdam UMC Location University of Amsterdam (NL)
  • Amsterdam Neuroscience (NL)
  • Amsterdam Public Health (NL)
  • Delft University of Technology (NL)
Corresponding author
Holstege, Henne
Venue
Translational Psychiatry
Published
2020-09-29
Volume
10
Issue
1
Pages
332-332
ISSN
2158-3188 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3090704421
Cited by
67
References
67
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 1
FWCI
4.51
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Translational Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • medRxiv (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Amsterdam UMC (VU Amsterdam) - Institutional Repository (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • VU Research Portal (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Research Repository (Delft University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
  • ZonMw (733051061, 733050814)
  • Stichting Dioraphte
  • Alzheimer Nederland (WE09.2014–03)
  • Amsterdam Neuroscience
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Alzheimer's disease research and treatments
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
Keywords
Alzheimer's disease, polygenic risk score, immune response, endocytosis, angiogenesis, centenarians, cognitive aging, neuroprotection
MeSH terms
Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Alzheimer Disease, Cognition, Endocytosis, Humans, Immunity

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