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Integration of Alzheimer’s disease genetics and myeloid genomics identifies disease risk regulatory elements and genes
Open accessAbstract
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified more than 40 loci associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but the causal variants, regulatory elements, genes and pathways remain largely unknown, impeding a mechanistic understanding of AD pathogenesis. Previously, we showed that AD risk alleles are enriched in myeloid-specific epigenomic annotations. Here, we show that they are specifically enriched in active enhancers of monocytes, macrophages and microglia. We integrated AD GWAS with myeloid epigenomic and transcriptomic datasets using analytical approaches to link myeloid enhancer activity to target gene expression regulation and AD risk modification. We identify AD risk enhancers and nominate candidate causal genes among their likely targets (including AP4E1, AP4M1, APBB3, BIN1, MS4A4A, MS4A6A, PILRA, RABEP1, SPI1, TP53INP1 , and ZYX ) in twenty loci. Fine-mapping of these enhancers nominates candidate functional variants that likely modify AD risk by regulating gene expression in myeloid cells. In the MS4A locus we identified a single candidate functional variant and validated it in human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived microglia and brain. Taken together, this study integrates AD GWAS with multiple myeloid genomic datasets to investigate the mechanisms of AD risk alleles and nominates candidate functional variants, regulatory elements and genes that likely modulate disease susceptibility.
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“Notably, AD risk alleles were recently shown to be enriched in PU.1-binding motifs (Novikova et al., 2021).”
From A novel molecular class that recruits HDAC/MECP2 complexes to PU.1 motifs reduces neuroinflammation (2023) · cites this paper as Novikova et al., 2021
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“PU.1-binding motifs are enriched in AD risk alleles (Novikova et al., 2021)”
From A novel molecular class that recruits HDAC/MECP2 complexes to PU.1 motifs reduces neuroinflammation (2023) · cites this paper as Novikova et al., 2021
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“Our iMG and iAst cells were epigenetically similar to hMGs6 and other reported iMGs22 and Ast (hAst)6 cells (Extended Data Fig. 1i).”
From PICALM Alzheimer’s risk allele causes aberrant lipid droplets in microglia (2025) · cites this paper as [22]
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“MS4A6A, a gene related to AD risk22,68,69, was one of the genes that showed a region-specific effect of age68,70.”
From Genetic analysis of the human microglial transcriptome across brain regions, aging and disease pathologies (2022) · cites this paper as [70]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn the citing paper
“Consistent with previous studies,55,56 linked peaks identified in microglia were significantly enriched for heritability of AD across five different studies2,3,4,5,6”
From Single nucleus multiomics identifies ZEB1 and MAFB as candidate regulators of Alzheimer’s disease-specific cis-regulatory elements (2023) · cites this paper as [56]
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Self-citationA Unique Microglia Type Associated with Restricting Development of Alzheimer’s Disease
Keren-Shaul, H., Spinrad, A., Weiner, A., Matcovitch-Natan, O., Dvir-Szternfeld, R., Ulland, T. K., David, E., Baruch, K., Lara-Astaiso, D., Toth, B., et al. (2017) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2017.05.018 · Cited by 5,493
Meta-Analysis of 74,046 Individuals Identifies 11 New Susceptibility Loci for Alzheimer’s Disease
(EADI), E. A. D. I., Lambert, J.-C., (GERAD), G. A. E. R. I. A. D., Alzheimer's Disease Genetic Consortium (ADGC), (CHARGE), C. F. H. A. A. R. I. G. E., Ibrahim-Verbaas, C. A., Harold, D., Naj, A. C., Sims, R., Bellenguez, C., et al. (2013) · Nature Genetics · doi:10.1038/ng.2802 · Cited by 4,336
Self-citationGiambartolomei, C., Vukcevic, D., Schadt, E. E., Franke, L., Hingorani, A. D., Wallace, C., & Plagnol, V. (2014) · PLoS Genetics · doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1004383 · Cited by 4,261
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Cholesterol and matrisome pathways dysregulated in astrocytes and microglia
TCW, J., Qian, L., Pipalia, N. H., Chao, M. J., Liang, S. A., Shi, Y., Jain, B. R., Bertelsen, S. E., Kapoor, M., Marcora, E., et al. (2022) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2022.05.017 · Cited by 411
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Metadata
- Authors
- Novikova, G., Kapoor, M., TCW, J., Abud, E. M., Efthymiou, A. G., Chen, S. X., Cheng, H., Fullard, J. F., Bendl, J., Liu, Y., Roussos, P., Björkegren, J. L., Liu, Y., Poon, W. W., Hao, K., Marcora, E., & Goate, A. M.
- Affiliations
- Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (US)
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- Indiana University Indianapolis (US)
- Karolinska University Hospital (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Marcora, Edoardo
- Goate, Alison M.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2021-03-12
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1610-1610
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7955030
- OpenAlex
- W3134303686
- Cited by
- 214
- References
- 80
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 55 · 2024: 38 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 21
- FWCI
- 22.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- IUScholarWorks (Indiana University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute on Aging (K01AG062683, F31 AG059337-01, R01AG050986)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Alzheimer's disease research and treatments
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
- Keywords
- Alzheimer's disease, genetic susceptibility loci, myeloid cells, regulatory elements, enhancers, microglia, macrophages, monocytes, epigenomics, transcriptomics, causal variants, fine mapping, BIN1, MS4A4A, MS4A6A, PU.1, TP53INP1, disease susceptibility, gene expression regulation
- MeSH terms
- Alleles, Alzheimer Disease, Gene Expression Regulation, Humans, Macrophages, Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid, Microglia, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Myeloid Cells, Genomics, Genome-Wide Association Study, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, Transcriptome
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