Research conducted at the Boston University School of Medicine has identified a significant genetic factor linked to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in the African American population. The study highlights the ADAMTS2 gene, which exhibited markedly higher activity levels in brain tissue from individuals with Alzheimer’s compared to those without the disease. This discovery, based on analysis from over 200 brain donors, suggests a common biological pathway that transcends racial lines.
Alzheimer’s disease disproportionately affects African Americans, with the rate of diagnosis being approximately twice that of White individuals in the United States. Researchers attribute part of this disparity to social determinants, such as limited access to healthcare and differences in educational opportunities. Additionally, African Americans are more likely to suffer from health conditions like cardiovascular disease and diabetes, which further elevate their risk for developing AD.
The study, noted as the largest investigation using brain tissue from African American donors, found numerous genes that displayed different behavior in individuals with Alzheimer’s. Among these, the ADAMTS2 gene stood out, showing an activity level that was 1.5 times higher in brain tissue of those with confirmed Alzheimer’s compared to controls.
Independent Validation of Findings
The research team utilized post-mortem prefrontal cortex tissue from 207 African American donors. This included 125 individuals with pathologically confirmed Alzheimer’s and 82 controls. The samples were sourced from 14 National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Alzheimer’s Research Centers across the United States. The findings on ADAMTS2 were consistent with results from an independent study conducted by the same team, which assessed a larger cohort of White individuals. This study compared brain tissue from individuals exhibiting clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s to those who had the same pathology but retained cognitive resilience.
Lindsay A. Farrer, PhD, the chief of biomedical genetics at Boston University and corresponding author of the study, remarked, “To our knowledge, this is the first time in similarly designed AD genetics studies that the most significant finding was the same in both White and African American populations.”
Implications for Future Research
The implications of these findings are profound, suggesting a shared biological process underlying Alzheimer’s risk across different populations. Previous studies indicated that most known Alzheimer’s risk variants tend to be specific to certain populations. Farrer elaborated, “Although the risk of Alzheimer’s in African Americans has been associated with variants in several genes, the overlap of genes showing such associations in European American populations is modest.”
The heightened expression of the ADAMTS2 gene in both African American and White individuals with Alzheimer’s not only emphasizes the importance of this gene in AD research but also raises its profile as a potential therapeutic target. The research was published online in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
Support for this study came from multiple NIH grants, highlighting the collaborative effort to address the complexities of Alzheimer’s research. The findings may pave the way for new treatment strategies that could benefit diverse populations suffering from this debilitating disease.
