Cited by 94Sex and Gender in HealthcareGenetic Associations and EpidemiologyGenetic and Clinical Aspects of Sex Determination and Chromosomal Abnormalities

Sex differences in brain protein expression and disease

Open access
Wingo, Aliza P., Liu, Yue, Gerasimov, Ekaterina S., Vattathil, Selina M., Liu, Jiaqi, Cutler, David J., Epstein, Michael P., Blokland, Gabriëlla A. M. +7 more·2023·Nature Medicine

Abstract

Most complex human traits differ by sex, but we have limited insight into the underlying mechanisms. Here, we investigated the influence of biological sex on protein expression and its genetic regulation in 1,277 human brain proteomes. We found that 13.2% (1,354) of brain proteins had sex-differentiated abundance and 1.5% (150) of proteins had sex-biased protein quantitative trait loci (sb-pQTLs). Among genes with sex-biased expression, we found 67% concordance between sex-differentiated protein and transcript levels; however, sex effects on the genetic regulation of expression were more evident at the protein level. Considering 24 psychiatric, neurologic and brain morphologic traits, we found that an average of 25% of their putatively causal genes had sex-differentiated protein abundance and 12 putatively causal proteins had sb-pQTLs. Furthermore, integrating sex-specific pQTLs with sex-stratified genome-wide association studies of six psychiatric and neurologic conditions, we uncovered another 23 proteins contributing to these traits in one sex but not the other. Together, these findings begin to provide insights into mechanisms underlying sex differences in brain protein expression and disease.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/s41591-023-02509-y

Cites

69 of 69 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 71 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [28]Neale Lab. UKBB. http://www.nealelab.is/uk-biobank/. Vol. 2022 (2018).
  2. [47]Johnson, E. C. B. et al. Large-scale deep multi-layer analysis of Alzheimer’s disease brain reveals strong proteomic disease-related changes not observed at the RNA level. Nat Neurosci. 25, 213–225 (2022). 35115731 PMC8825285 · DOI · Paper page

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Wingo, A. P., Liu, Y., Gerasimov, E. S., Vattathil, S. M., Liu, J., Cutler, D. J., Epstein, M. P., Blokland, G. A. M., Thambisetty, M., Troncoso, J. C., Duong, D. M., Bennett, D. A., Levey, A. I., Seyfried, N. T., & Wingo, T. S.
Affiliations
  • Emory University (US)
  • Maastricht University (NL)
  • National Institutes of Health (US)
  • Johns Hopkins University (US)
  • Rush University Medical Center (US)
Corresponding author
  • Wingo, Aliza P.
  • Wingo, Thomas S.
Venue
Nature Medicine
Published
2023-08-31
Volume
29
Issue
9
Pages
2224-2232
ISSN
  • 1078-8956 (ISSN-L)
  • 1546-170X
OpenAlex
W4386324900
Cited by
94
References
71
Citations by year
2026: 27 · 2025: 40 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 1
FWCI
24.06
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research Publications (Maastricht University) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (IK4BX005219, I01 BX005686, I01BX003853, IK2 CX000601)
  • National Institutes of Health (1rf1ag071170-01)
  • National Institute on Aging (R01AG017917, R01AG056533, RF1 AG071170, U19AG033655, R01AG015819, P30AG010161, U01AG061357, U01AG061356, U54AG065187, P30AG066507, R01AG072120, R01AG079170, R01AG075827, R01AG087250, P30AG066511, P30AG072975)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Sex and Gender in Healthcare
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic and Clinical Aspects of Sex Determination and Chromosomal Abnormalities
Keywords
sex differences, brain proteome, sex-biased gene expression, protein abundance, mental illness, neurological disorders
MeSH terms
Brain, Female, Humans, Male, Phenotype, Sex Characteristics, Multifactorial Inheritance, Genome-Wide Association Study

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review