Sex and APOE ε4 genotype modify the Alzheimer’s disease serum metabolome

Matthias Arnold, Kwangsik Nho, Alexandra Kueider-Paisley, Tyler Massaro, Kevin Huynh, Barbara Brauner, Siamak MahmoudianDehkordi, Gregory Louie, M. Arthur Moseley, J. Will Thompson, Lisa St John-Williams, Jessica D. Tenenbaum, Colette Blach, Rui Chang, Roberta D. Brinton, Rebecca Baillie, Xianlin Han, John Q. Trojanowski, Leslie M. Shaw, Ralph MartinsMichael W. Weiner, Eugenia Trushina, Jon B. Toledo, Peter J. Meikle, David A. Bennett, Jan Krumsiek, P. Murali Doraiswamy, Andrew J. Saykin, Rima Kaddurah-Daouk, Gabi Kastenmüller

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

Late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can, in part, be considered a metabolic disease. Besides age, female sex and APOE ε4 genotype represent strong risk factors for AD that also give rise to large metabolic differences. We systematically investigated group-specific metabolic alterations by conducting stratified association analyses of 139 serum metabolites in 1,517 individuals from the AD Neuroimaging Initiative with AD biomarkers. We observed substantial sex differences in effects of 15 metabolites with partially overlapping differences for APOE ε4 status groups. Several group-specific metabolic alterations were not observed in unstratified analyses using sex and APOE ε4 as covariates. Combined stratification revealed further subgroup-specific metabolic effects limited to APOE ε4+ females. The observed metabolic alterations suggest that females experience greater impairment of mitochondrial energy production than males. Dissecting metabolic heterogeneity in AD pathogenesis can therefore enable grading the biomedical relevance for specific pathways within specific subgroups, guiding the way to personalized medicine.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number1148
JournalNature communications
Volume11
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1 2020

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Chemistry
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Physics and Astronomy

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