Replication of EPHA1 and CD33 associations with late-onset Alzheimer's disease: a multi-centre case-control study

• Published in: Molecular neurodegeneration 2011-07, Vol.6 (1), p.54-54, Article 54
• Main Authors: Carrasquillo, Minerva M, Belbin, Olivia, Hunter, Talisha A, Ma, Li, Bisceglio, Gina D, Zou, Fanggeng, Crook, Julia E, Pankratz, V Shane, Sando, Sigrid B, Aasly, Jan O, Barcikowska, Maria, Wszolek, Zbigniew K, Dickson, Dennis W, Graff-Radford, Neill R, Petersen, Ronald C, Passmore, Peter, Morgan, Kevin, Younkin, Steven G
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alzheimer's disease; Genetic aspects; Genetic variation; Genomes; Genotype; Physiological aspects
• ISSN: 1750-1326; 1750-1326
• DOI: 10.1186/1750-1326-6-54

A recently published genome-wide association study (GWAS) of late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) revealed genome-wide significant association of variants in or near MS4A4A, CD2AP, EPHA1 and CD33. Meta-analyses of this and a previously published GWAS revealed significant association at ABCA7 and MS4A, independent evidence for association of CD2AP, CD33 and EPHA1 and an opposing yet significant association of a variant near ARID5B. In this study, we genotyped five variants (in or near CD2AP, EPHA1, ARID5B, and CD33) in a large (2,634 LOAD, 4,201 controls), independent dataset comprising six case-control series from the USA and Europe. We performed meta-analyses of the association of these variants with LOAD and tested for association using logistic regression adjusted by age-at-diagnosis, gender, and APOE ε4 dosage. We found no significant evidence of series heterogeneity. Associations with LOAD were successfully replicated for EPHA1 (rs11767557; OR = 0.87, p = 5 × 10-4) and CD33 (rs3865444; OR = 0.92, p = 0.049), with odds ratios comparable to those previously reported. Although the two ARID5B variants (rs2588969 and rs494288) showed significant association with LOAD in meta-analysis of our dataset (p = 0.046 and 0.008, respectively), the associations did not survive adjustment for covariates (p = 0.30 and 0.11, respectively). We had insufficient evidence in our data to support the association of the CD2AP variant (rs9349407, p = 0.56). Our data overwhelmingly support the association of EPHA1 and CD33 variants with LOAD risk: addition of our data to the results previously reported (total n > 42,000) increased the strength of evidence for these variants, providing impressive p-values of 2.1 × 10-15 (EPHA1) and 1.8 × 10-13 (CD33).