Mosaic Loss of Chromosome Y in Blood Is Associated with Alzheimer Disease

Dumanski JP, Lambert JC, Rasi C, Giedraitis V, Davies H, Grenier-Boley B, Lindgren CM, Campion D, Dufouil C, Pasquier F, Amouyel P, Lannfelt L, Ingelsson M, Kilander L, Lind L, Forsberg LA

The American Journal of Human Genetics 98 (6) 1208-1219 [2016-06-00; online 2016-06-00]

Men have a shorter life expectancy compared with women but the underlying factor(s) are not clear. Late-onset, sporadic Alzheimer disease (AD) is a common and lethal neurodegenerative disorder and many germline inherited variants have been found to influence the risk of developing AD. Our previous results show that a fundamentally different genetic variant, i.e., lifetime-acquired loss of chromosome Y (LOY) in blood cells, is associated with all-cause mortality and an increased risk of non-hematological tumors and that LOY could be induced by tobacco smoking. We tested here a hypothesis that men with LOY are more susceptible to AD and show that LOY is associated with AD in three independent studies of different types. In a case-control study, males with AD diagnosis had higher degree of LOY mosaicism (adjusted odds ratio = 2.80, p = 0.0184, AD events = 606). Furthermore, in two prospective studies, men with LOY at blood sampling had greater risk for incident AD diagnosis during follow-up time (hazard ratio [HR] = 6.80, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] = 2.16-21.43, AD events = 140, p = 0.0011). Thus, LOY in blood is associated with risks of both AD and cancer, suggesting a role of LOY in blood cells on disease processes in other tissues, possibly via defective immunosurveillance. As a male-specific risk factor, LOY might explain why males on average live shorter lives than females.

Bioinformatics Support for Computational Resources [Service]

NGI Uppsala (SNP&SEQ Technology Platform) [Service]

National Genomics Infrastructure [Service]

PubMed 27231129

DOI 10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.05.014

Crossref 10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.05.014

pmc: PMC4908225
pii: S0002-9297(16)30149-5


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