Introduction: Analysis of sequence data in high-risk pedigrees is a powerful approach to detect rare predisposition variants.
Methods: Rare, shared candidate predisposition variants were identified from exome sequencing 19 Alzheimer's disease (AD)-affected cousin pairs selected from high-risk pedigrees. Variants were further prioritized by risk association in various external datasets.
Background: Longevity as a phenotype entails living longer than average and typically includes living without chronic age-related diseases. Recently, several common genetic components to longevity have been identified. This study aims to identify additional genetic variants associated with longevity using unique and powerful analyses of pedigrees with a statistical excess of healthy elderly individuals identified in the Utah Population Database (UPDB).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia and, despite decades of effort, there is no effective treatment. In the last decade, many association studies have identified genetic markers that are associated with AD status. Two of these studies suggest that an epistatic interaction between variants rs1049296 in the transferrin (TF) gene and rs1800562 in the homeostatic iron regulator (HFE) gene, commonly known as hemochromatosis, is in genetic association with AD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Some of the unexplained heritability of Alzheimer disease (AD) may be due to rare variants whose effects are not captured in genome-wide association studies because very large samples are needed to observe statistically significant associations.
Objective: To identify genetic variants associated with AD risk using a nonstatistical approach.
Design, Setting, And Participants: Genetic association study in which rare variants were identified by whole-exome sequencing in unrelated individuals of European ancestry from the Alzheimer's Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP).
Bacteriophages are a major force in the evolution of bacteria due to their sheer abundance as well as their ability to infect and kill their hosts and to transfer genetic material. Bacteriophages that infect the Enterobacteriaceae family are of particular interest because this bacterial family contains dangerous animal and plant pathogens. Herein we report the isolation and characterization of two jumbo myovirus Erwinia phages, RisingSun and Joad, collected from apple trees.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Opioid Abuse Risk Screener was developed to support well-informed decision-making in opioid analgesic prescribing by extending the breadth of psychiatric risk factors evaluated relative to other non-clinician-administered measures. We examined the preliminary predictive validity of the Opioid Abuse Risk Screener relative to the widely used Screener and Opioid Assessment for Patients with Pain-Revised in predicting aberrant urine drug tests and controlled substance database checks. The Opioid Abuse Risk Screener is significantly different from the Screener and Opioid Assessment for Patients with Pain-Revised in predicting aberrant same-day urine drug tests ( = 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Analyzing next-generation sequencing data is difficult because datasets are large, second generation sequencing platforms have high error rates, and because each position in the target genome (exome, transcriptome, etc.) is sequenced multiple times. Given these challenges, numerous bioinformatic algorithms have been developed to analyze these data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: CCL16 is a chemokine predominantly expressed in the liver, but is also found in the blood and brain, and is known to play important roles in immune response and angiogenesis. Little is known about the gene's regulation.
Methods: Here, we test for potential causal SNPs that affect CCL16 protein levels in both blood plasma and cerebrospinal fluid in a genome-wide association study across two datasets.
Background: Prostatic Acid Phosphatase (PAP) is an enzyme that is produced primarily in the prostate and functions as a cell growth regulator and potential tumor suppressor. Understanding the genetic regulation of this enzyme is important because PAP plays an important role in prostate cancer and is expressed in other tissues such as the brain.
Methods: We tested association between 5.
Background: Prolactin is a polypeptide hormone secreted by the anterior pituitary gland that plays an essential role in lactation, tissue growth, and suppressing apoptosis to increase cell survival. Prolactin serves as a key player in many life-critical processes, including immune system and reproduction. Prolactin is also found in multiple fluids throughout the body, including plasma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Ebbert et al. reported gene-gene interactions between rs11136000-rs670139 (CLU-MS4A4E) and rs3865444-rs670139 (CD33-MS4A4E). We evaluate these interactions in the largest data set for an epistasis study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCerebrospinal fluid (CSF) 42 amino acid species of amyloid beta (Aβ42) and tau levels are strongly correlated with the presence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) neuropathology including amyloid plaques and neurodegeneration and have been successfully used as endophenotypes for genetic studies of AD. Additional CSF analytes may also serve as useful endophenotypes that capture other aspects of AD pathophysiology. Here we have conducted a genome-wide association study of CSF levels of 59 AD-related analytes.
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