Functional annotation of Alzheimer's disease associated loci revealed by GWASs

PLoS One. 2017 Jun 26;12(6):e0179677. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179677. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) discovered a number of SNPs and genes associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, how these SNPs and genes influence the liability to AD is not fully understood. We deployed computational approaches to explore the function and action mechanisms of AD -related SNPs and genes identified by GWASs, including the effects of 195 GWAS lead SNPs and 338 proxy SNPs on miRNAs binding and protein phosphorylation, their RegulomeDB and 3DSNP scores, and gene ontology, pathway enrichment and protein-protein interaction network of 126 AD-associated genes. Our computational analysis identified 6 lead SNPs (rs10119, rs1048699, rs148763909, rs610932, rs6857 and rs714948) and 2 proxy SNPs (rs12539172 and rs2847655) that potentially impacted the miRNA binding. Lead SNP rs2296160 and proxy SNPs rs679620 and rs2228145 were identified as PhosSNPs potentially influencing protein phosphorylation. AD-associated genes showed enrichment of "regulation of beta-amyloid formation", "regulation of neurofibrillary tangle assembly", "leukocyte mediated immunity" and "protein-lipid complex assembly" signaling pathway. Protein-protein interaction network and functional module analyses identified highly-interconnected "hub" genes (APOE, PICALM, BIN1, ABCA7, CD2AP, CLU, CR1, MS4A4E and MS4A6A) and bottleneck genes (APOE, TOMM40, NME8, PICALM, CD2AP, ZCWPW1, FAM180B, GAB2 and PTK2B) that created three tight subnetworks. Our results provided the targets for further experimental assessment and further insight on AD pathophysiology.

MeSH terms

  • Alzheimer Disease / genetics*
  • Alzheimer Disease / metabolism*
  • Gene Ontology
  • Gene Regulatory Networks
  • Genome-Wide Association Study
  • Humans
  • MicroRNAs / genetics
  • MicroRNAs / metabolism
  • Molecular Sequence Annotation
  • Phosphorylation
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
  • Protein Interaction Maps
  • Proteins / metabolism

Substances

  • MicroRNAs
  • Proteins

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31371275), Students Innovation Training Plan Project of Central China Normal University (No. B2015186) and self-determined research funds of Central China Normal University (No. CCNU16JCZX03). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.