White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are the most common brain-imaging feature of cerebral small vessel disease (SVD), hypertension being the main known risk factor. Here, we identify 27 genome-wide loci for WMH-volume in a cohort of 50,970 older individuals, accounting for modification/confounding by hypertension. Aggregated WMH risk variants were associated with altered white matter integrity (p = 2.5×10-7) in brain images from 1,738 young healthy adults, providing insight into the lifetime impact of SVD genetic risk. Mendelian randomization suggested causal association of increasing WMH-volume with stroke, Alzheimer-type dementia, and of increasing blood pressure (BP) with larger WMH-volume, notably also in persons without clinical hypertension. Transcriptome-wide colocalization analyses showed association of WMH-volume with expression of 39 genes, of which four encode known drug targets. Finally, we provide insight into BP-independent biological pathways underlying SVD and suggest potential for genetic stratification of high-risk individuals and for genetically-informed prioritization of drug targets for prevention trials.

doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19111-2, hdl.handle.net/1765/132445
Nature Communications
Erasmus MC: University Medical Center Rotterdam

Sargurupremraj, M. (Muralidharan), Suzuki, H. (Hideaki), Jian, X. (Xueqiu), Sarnowski, C., Evans, T., Bis, J., … Debette, S. (2020). Cerebral small vessel disease genomics and its implications across the lifespan. Nature Communications, 11(1). doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19111-2