title: Genetic loci associated with Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: The article by Lambertet al.reports the identification of 11 novel susceptibility loci for late-onset Alzheimer's disease. The observations of this study significantly enhance the field since they further disentangle the genetic causes and pathways underlying Alzheimer's disease by identifying novel disease-associated variants clustering in specific pathways. These pathways include APP processing, lipid metabolism, inflammation/immune response, intracellular trafficking/endocytosis, tau metabolism, synaptic function. All of the newly identified disease-associated variants have small effect sizes with increases in risk of 10-20%. The cumulative population attributable fraction associated with known genetic variants amounts now to approximately 80%. This article also underlines the ongoing value of genome-wide association studies for identification of causative common variants in the era of whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing studies.
authors.affiliation: The Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease & the Aging Brain, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA and Gertrude H Sergievsky Center, 630 West 168th Street, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA and The Department of Neurology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA Tel.: +1 212 305 0865; ; cr2101@columbia.edu.
authors.forename: Christiane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Reitz
keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; genes