학술논문

Sex and APOE ε4 genotype modify the Alzheimer’s disease serum metabolome
Document Type
article
Source
Nature Communications. 11(1)
Subject
Biochemistry and Cell Biology
Biological Sciences
Neurosciences
Dementia
Alzheimer's Disease including Alzheimer's Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD)
Neurodegenerative
Brain Disorders
Acquired Cognitive Impairment
Aging
Alzheimer's Disease
Genetics
Neurological
Good Health and Well Being
Aged
Alzheimer Disease
Apolipoproteins E
Biomarkers
Blood
Cohort Studies
Female
Genotype
Humans
Male
Metabolome
Mitochondria
Positron-Emission Tomography
Sex Factors
Language
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.