Alzheimer’s Disease: New Discovery
Alzheimer’s is a very interesting and barely understood sickness. Scientists have been working many years to understand the genetic underpinnings of this disease. They have found two new genes that raise the risk of the condition. 
An article published in Medical News Today talks about this study, its key findings and its projections to the future. In this blog post I have summed up the most important parts of this finding.
The study set out to examine the DNA of more than 85,000 individuals in an attempt to identify the genetic variants associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The study was published in the journal Nature Genetics.
This study was done with the collaborative efforts of more than 450 authors. One of the contributors explained that late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) has a strong genetic component. In this kind of disease, the patients tend to experience their first symptoms at around the age of 65. Most of the people that develop this disease tend to have the late-onset form of the condition.
There are about 30 genetic locations known to raise the risk of LOAD.
This study was divided in three stages:
- genotype 34,174 samples using whole-exome microarray.
- Using de novo genotyping and genotype imputation, 35,962 independent samples were analyze and tested for the genetic variations that they had identified in patients with LOAD in the first stage.
- Examine 14,997 samples to find which of the associations identified in the 2nd stage were the most significant.
These efforts narrowed their candidates down to two genes that were not previously believed to have links to Alzheimer’s. They also found a new mutation in a third gene already known to be implicated in LOAD.
The discovery of two new risk genes for Alzheimer’s is an exciting advance that could help to deepen our understanding of what happens in the brains of people with the disease. -Dr. Doug Brown
These particular genes, which suggest that immune cells in the brain play a casual ole in the disease, are also very good targets for potential drug treatment. – Dr. Rebecca Sims
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