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First genome-wide association results in EMIF-AD now available as preprint

Together with several collaborating European research teams, our group is part of the European Medical Information Framework Alzheimer’s Disease Multimodal Biomarker Discovery (EMIF-AD MDB). Specifically, the LIGA team leads the genomics and epigenomics efforts conducted in EMIF-AD MDB dataset and now completed their first genome-wide association study (GWAS) analyses on 16 traits, including 14 measures of amyloid-beta (Aβ) and tau-protein species in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). In addition to confirming the well-established effects of apolipoprotein E (APOE) on diagnostic outcome and phenotypes related to Aβ42, our data suggest novel potential signals in the zinc finger homeobox 3 (ZFHX3) for CSF-Aβ38 and CSF-Aβ40 levels. In subsequent work, our team will utilize the genomics data generated in EMIF-AD MDB to perform GWAS of other AD-relevant clinical outcomes ascertained in this unique dataset. The analyses of this very first GWAS in EMIF-AD MDB were spearheaded by LIGA researcher Shengjun Hong and are now available as pre-print on bioRxiv.