APOE-stratified genome-wide association study suggests potential novel genes for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease in East-Asian descent

ABSTRACT In this study, we report two new possible susceptible genes for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease identified through an APOE-stratified genome-wide association analysis (GWAS) using East Asian samples. In the discovery phase, we performed a GWAS of Alzheimer’s disease in 2,291 Korean seniors from the Gwangju Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias (GARD) cohort study. A successive replication analysis with a Japanese sample of size 1,956 suggested three novel susceptible SNPs in two genes: LRIG1 and CACNA1A . This study demonstrates that the discovery of AD-associated variants can be accomplished in non-European ethnic groups with a more homogeneous genetic background using samples comprising fewer subjects.