Estrogen activates Alzheimer's disease genes

Abstract Introduction Women are at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the reason why remains unknown. One hypothesis is that low estrogen levels at menopause increases vulnerability to AD, but this remains unproven. Methods We compared neuronal genes upregulated by estrogen in ova...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Abhirami Ratnakumar, Samuel E. Zimmerman, Bryen A. Jordan, Jessica C. Mar
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2019-01-01
Series:Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trci.2019.09.004
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1850114293192720384
author Abhirami Ratnakumar
Samuel E. Zimmerman
Bryen A. Jordan
Jessica C. Mar
author_facet Abhirami Ratnakumar
Samuel E. Zimmerman
Bryen A. Jordan
Jessica C. Mar
author_sort Abhirami Ratnakumar
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Introduction Women are at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the reason why remains unknown. One hypothesis is that low estrogen levels at menopause increases vulnerability to AD, but this remains unproven. Methods We compared neuronal genes upregulated by estrogen in ovariectomized female rhesus macaques with a database of >17,000 diverse gene sets and applied a rare variant burden test to exome sequencing data from 1208 female AD patients with the age of onset < 75 years and 2162 female AD controls. Results We found a striking overlap between genes upregulated by estrogen in macaques and genes downregulated in the human postmortem AD brain, and we found that estrogen upregulates the APOE gene and that progesterone acts antagonistically to estrogen genome‐wide. We also found that female patients with AD have excess rare mutations in the early menopause gene MCM8. Discussion We show with genomic data that the menopausal loss of estrogen could underlie the increased risk for AD in women.
format Article
id doaj-art-a7922dadae5046d7900a11babc4d41a6
institution OA Journals
issn 2352-8737
language English
publishDate 2019-01-01
publisher Wiley
record_format Article
series Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions
spelling doaj-art-a7922dadae5046d7900a11babc4d41a62025-08-20T02:36:54ZengWileyAlzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions2352-87372019-01-015190691710.1016/j.trci.2019.09.004Estrogen activates Alzheimer's disease genesAbhirami Ratnakumar0Samuel E. Zimmerman1Bryen A. Jordan2Jessica C. Mar3Department of Systems and Computational BiologyAlbert Einstein College of MedicineBronxNYUSADepartment of Systems and Computational BiologyAlbert Einstein College of MedicineBronxNYUSADominick P. Purpura Department of NeuroscienceAlbert Einstein College of MedicineBronxNYUSADepartment of Systems and Computational BiologyAlbert Einstein College of MedicineBronxNYUSAAbstract Introduction Women are at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the reason why remains unknown. One hypothesis is that low estrogen levels at menopause increases vulnerability to AD, but this remains unproven. Methods We compared neuronal genes upregulated by estrogen in ovariectomized female rhesus macaques with a database of >17,000 diverse gene sets and applied a rare variant burden test to exome sequencing data from 1208 female AD patients with the age of onset < 75 years and 2162 female AD controls. Results We found a striking overlap between genes upregulated by estrogen in macaques and genes downregulated in the human postmortem AD brain, and we found that estrogen upregulates the APOE gene and that progesterone acts antagonistically to estrogen genome‐wide. We also found that female patients with AD have excess rare mutations in the early menopause gene MCM8. Discussion We show with genomic data that the menopausal loss of estrogen could underlie the increased risk for AD in women.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trci.2019.09.004EstrogenMenopauseMitochondriaAPOEMCM8ASPM
spellingShingle Abhirami Ratnakumar
Samuel E. Zimmerman
Bryen A. Jordan
Jessica C. Mar
Estrogen activates Alzheimer's disease genes
Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions
Estrogen
Menopause
Mitochondria
APOE
MCM8
ASPM
title Estrogen activates Alzheimer's disease genes
title_full Estrogen activates Alzheimer's disease genes
title_fullStr Estrogen activates Alzheimer's disease genes
title_full_unstemmed Estrogen activates Alzheimer's disease genes
title_short Estrogen activates Alzheimer's disease genes
title_sort estrogen activates alzheimer s disease genes
topic Estrogen
Menopause
Mitochondria
APOE
MCM8
ASPM
url https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trci.2019.09.004
work_keys_str_mv AT abhiramiratnakumar estrogenactivatesalzheimersdiseasegenes
AT samuelezimmerman estrogenactivatesalzheimersdiseasegenes
AT bryenajordan estrogenactivatesalzheimersdiseasegenes
AT jessicacmar estrogenactivatesalzheimersdiseasegenes