Admixture mapping identifies novel Alzheimer's disease risk regions in African Americans

Background: This study used admixture mapping to prioritize the genetic regions associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) in African American (AA) individuals, followed by ancestry-aware regression analysis to fine-map the prioritized regions.

Methods: We analyzed 10,271 individuals from 17 different AA datasets. We performed admixture mapping and meta-analyzed the results. We then used regression analysis, adjusting for local ancestry main effects and interactions with genotype, to refine the regions identified from admixture mapping. Finally, we leveraged in silico annotation and differential gene expression data to prioritize AD-related variants and genes.

Results: Admixture mapping identified two genome-wide significant loci on chromosomes 17p13.2 (p = 2.2 × 10^-5 ) and 18q21.33 (p = 1.2 × 10^-5 ). Our fine mapping of the chromosome 17p13.2 and 18q21.33 regions revealed several interesting genes such as the MINK1, KIF1C, and BCL2.

Discussion: Our ancestry-aware regression approach showed that AA individuals have a lower risk of AD if they inherited African ancestry admixture block at the 17p13.2 locus.

Highlights: We identified two genome-wide significant admixture mapping signals: on chromosomes 17p13.2 and 18q21.33, which are novel in African American (AA) populations. Our ancestry-aware regression approach showed that AA individuals have a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) if they inherited African ancestry admixture block at the 17p13.2 locus. We found that the overall proportion of African ancestry does not differ between the cases and controls that suggest African genetic ancestry alone is not likely to explain the AD prevalence difference between AA and non-Hispanic White populations.