We sought to identify new susceptibility loci for Alzheimer's disease through a staged association study (GERAD+) and by testing suggestive loci reported by the Alzheimer's Disease Genetic Consortium (ADGC) in a companion paper. We undertook a combined analysis of four genome-wide association datasets (stage 1) and identified ten newly associated variants with P ĝ‰Currency sign 1 × 10-5. We tested these variants for association in an independent sample (stage 2). Three SNPs at two loci replicated and showed evidence for association in a further sample (stage 3). Meta-analyses of all data provided compelling evidence that ABCA7 (rs3764650, meta P = 4.5 × 10-17; including ADGC data, meta P = 5.0 × 10-21) and the MS4A gene cluster (rs610932, meta P = 1.8 × 10-14; including ADGC data, meta P = 1.2 × 10-16) are new Alzheimer's disease susceptibility loci. We also found independent evidence for association for three loci reported by the ADGC, which, when combined, showed genome-wide significance: CD2AP (GERAD+, P = 8.0 × 10-4; including ADGC data, meta P = 8.6 × 10-9), CD33 (GERAD+, P = 2.2 × 10-4; including ADGC data, meta P = 1.6 × 10-9) and EPHA1 (GERAD+, P = 3.4 × 10-4; including ADGC data, meta P = 6.0 × 10-10).

doi.org/10.1038/ng.803, hdl.handle.net/1765/34220
Nature Genetics
Erasmus MC: University Medical Center Rotterdam

Hollingworth, P., Harold, D., Sims, R., Gerrish, A., Lambert, J. C., Carrasquillo, M., … Williams, J. (2011). Common variants at ABCA7, MS4A6A/MS4A4E, EPHA1, CD33 and CD2AP are associated with Alzheimer's disease. Nature Genetics, 43(5), 429–436. doi:10.1038/ng.803