Moving beyond neurons: the role of cell type-specific gene regulation in Parkinson's disease heritability
Date
2019-04-17
Authors
Reynolds, R.H.
Botia, J.
Nalls, M.A.
International Parkinson's Disease Genomics Consortium (IPDGC)
Okubadejo, N.U.
Ojo, O.O.
Systems Genomics of Parkinson Disease
Hardy, J.
Gagliano Taliun, S.A.
Ryten, M.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD), with its characteristic loss of nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons and deposition of α-synuclein in neurons, is often considered a neuronal disorder. However, in recent years substantial evidence has emerged to implicate glial cell types, such as astrocytes and microglia. In this study, we used stratified LD score regression and expression-weighted cell-type enrichment together with several brain-related and cell-type-specific genomic annotations to connect human genomic PD findings to specific brain cell types. We found that PD heritability attributable to common variation does not enrich in global and regional brain annotations or brain-related cell-type-specific annotations. Likewise, we found no enrichment of PD susceptibility genes in brain-related cell types. In contrast, we demonstrated a significant enrichment of PD heritability in a curated lysosomal gene set highly expressed in astrocytic, microglial, and oligodendrocyte subtypes, and in LoF-intolerant genes, which were found highly expressed in almost all tested cellular subtypes. Our results suggest that PD risk loci do not lie in specific cell types or individual brain regions, but rather in global cellular processes detectable across several cell types.
Description
Staff publications
Keywords
Parkinson disease , Genetics , Neuroscience , Research Subject Categories::MEDICINE
Citation
Reynolds RH, Botía J, Nalls MA; International Parkinson’s Disease Genomics Consortium (IPDGC); System Genomics of Parkinson’s Disease (SGPD), Hardy J, Gagliano Taliun SA, Ryten M. Moving beyond neurons: the role of cell type-specific gene regulation in Parkinson's disease heritability. NPJ Parkinsons Dis. 2019 Apr 17;5:6.