TY  - JOUR
A1  - Dekker, Annelot M.
A1  - Diekstra, Frank P.
A1  - Pulit, Sara L.
A1  - Tazelaar, Gijs H. P.
A1  - van der Spek, Rick A.
A1  - van Rheenen, Wouter
A1  - van Eijk, Kristel R.
A1  - Calvo, Andrea
A1  - Brunetti, Maura
A1  - Van Damme, Philip
A1  - Robberecht, Wim
A1  - Hardiman, Orla
A1  - McLaughlin, Russell
A1  - Chiò, Adriano
A1  - Sendtner, Michael
A1  - Ludolph, Albert C.
A1  - Weishaupt, Jochen H.
A1  - Pardina, Jesus S. Mora
A1  - van den Berg, Leonard H.
A1  - Veldink, Jan H.
T1  - Exome array analysis of rare and low frequency variants in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
JF  - Scientific Reports
N2  - Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects 1 in ~350 individuals. Genetic association studies have established ALS as a multifactorial disease with heritability estimated at ~61%, and recent studies show a prominent role for rare variation in its genetic architecture. To identify rare variants associated with disease onset we performed exome array genotyping in 4,244 cases and 3,106 controls from European cohorts. In this largest exome-wide study of rare variants in ALS to date, we performed single-variant association testing, gene-based burden, and exome-wide individual set-unique burden (ISUB) testing to identify single or aggregated rare variation that modifies disease risk. In single-variant testing no variants reached exome-wide significance, likely due to limited statistical power. Gene-based burden testing of rare non-synonymous and loss-of-function variants showed NEK1 as the top associated gene. ISUB analysis did not show an increased exome-wide burden of deleterious variants in patients, possibly suggesting a more region-specific role for rare variation. Complete summary statistics are released publicly. This study did not implicate new risk loci, emphasizing the immediate need for future large-scale collaborations in ALS that will expand available sample sizes, increase genome coverage, and improve our ability to detect rare variants associated to ALS.
KW  - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
KW  - genome-wide association studies
Y1  - 2019
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-223686
VL  - 9
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Jandke, Solveig
A1  - Garz, Cornelia
A1  - Schwanke, Daniel
A1  - Sendtner, Michael
A1  - Heinze, Hans-Jochen
A1  - Carare, Roxana O.
A1  - Schreiber, Stefanie
T1  - The association between hypertensive arteriopathy and cerebral amyloid angiopathy in spontaneously hypertensive stroke-prone rats
JF  - Brain Pathology
N2  - We aimed to test the hypothesis that in spontaneously hypertensive stroke-prone rats (SHRSP), non-amyloid cerebral small vessel disease/hypertensive arteriopathy (HA) results in vessel wall injury that may promote cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). Our study comprised 21 male SHRSP (age 17–44 weeks) and 10 age- and sex-matched Wistar control rats, that underwent two-photon (2PM) imaging of the arterioles in the parietal cortex using Methoxy-X04, Dextran and cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements. Our data suggest that HA in SHRSP progresses in a temporal and age-dependent manner, starting from small vessel wall damage (stage 1A), proceeding to CBF reduction (stage 1B), non-occlusive (stage 2), and finally, occlusive thrombi (stage 3). Wistar animals also demonstrated small vessel wall damage, but were free of any of the later HA stages. Nearly half of all SHRSP additionally displayed vascular Methoxy-X04 positivity indicative of cortical CAA. Vascular β-amyloid deposits were found in small vessels characterized by thrombotic occlusions (stage 2 or 3). Post-mortem analysis of the rat brains confirmed the findings derived from intravital 2PM microscopy. Our data thus overall suggest that advanced HA may play a role in CAA development with the two small vessel disease entities might be related to the same pathological spectrum of the aging brain.
KW  - cerebral amyloid angiopathy
KW  - cerebral small vessel disease
KW  - hypertensive arteriopathy
KW  - intravital imaging
KW  - spontaneously hypertensive stroke-prone rat
Y1  - 2018
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-323279
VL  - 28
ER  -