Heritability and genetic variance of dementia with Lewy bodies

Guerreiro, R.; Escott-Price, V.; Hernandez, D.; Kun-Rodrigues, C.; Ross, O.; Orme, T.; Neto, J. L.; Carmona, S.; Dehghani, N.; Eicher, J. D.; Shepherd, C.; Parkkinen, L.; Darwent, L.; Heckman, M. G.; Scholz, S.; Troncoso, J.; Pletnikova, O.; Dawson, T.; Rosenthal, L.; Ansorge, O.; Clarimon, J.; Lleo, A.; Morenas-Rodriguez, E.; Clark, L.; Honig, L.; Marder, K.; Lemstra, A.; Rogaeva, E.; St. George-Hyslop, P.; Londos, E.; Zetterberg, H.; Barber, I.; Braae, A.; Brown, K.; Morgan, K.; Troakes, C.; Al-Sarraj, S.; Lashley, T.; Holton, J.; Compta, Y.; Van Deerlin, V.; Serrano, G.; Beach, T.; Lesage,

doi:10.1101/454249

Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.1101/454249

Heritability and genetic variance of dementia with Lewy bodies

View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Recent large-scale genetic studies have allowed for the first glimpse of the effects of common genetic variability in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), identifying risk variants with appreciable effect sizes. However, it is currently well established that a substantial portion of the genetic heritable component of complex traits is not captured by genome-wide significant SNPs. To overcome this issue, we have estimated the proportion of phenotypic variance explained by genetic variability (SNP heritability) in DLB using a method that is unbiased by allele frequency or linkage disequilibrium properties of the underlying variants. This shows that the heritability of DLB is nearly twice as high as previous estimates based on common variants only (31% vs 59.9%). We also determine the amount of phenotypic variance in DLB that can be explained by recent polygenic risk scores from either Parkinsons disease (PD) or Alzheimers disease (AD), and show that, despite being highly significant, they explain a low amount of variance. Additionally, to identify pleiotropic events that might improve our understanding of the disease, we performed genetic correlation analyses of DLB with over 200 diseases and biomedically relevant traits. Our data shows that DLB has a positive correlation with education phenotypes, which is opposite to what occurs in AD. Overall, our data suggests that novel genetic risk factors for DLB should be identified by larger GWAS and these are likely to be independent from known AD and PD risk variants.

Source connections

Published article ↗

Explore related subjects

neuroscience Preprint

Keep this discovery

BibTeX RIS

Guerreiro, R., Escott-Price, V., Hernandez, D., Kun-Rodrigues, C., Ross, O., Orme, T., Neto, J. L., Carmona, S., Dehghani, N., Eicher, J. D., Shepherd, C., Parkkinen, L., Darwent, L., Heckman, M. G., Scholz, S., Troncoso, J., Pletnikova, O., Dawson, T., Rosenthal, L., Ansorge, O., Clarimon, J., Lleo, A., Morenas-Rodriguez, E., Clark, L., Honig, L., Marder, K., Lemstra, A., Rogaeva, E., St. George-Hyslop, P., Londos, E., Zetterberg, H., Barber, I., Braae, A., Brown, K., Morgan, K., Troakes, C., Al-Sarraj, S., Lashley, T., Holton, J., Compta, Y., Van Deerlin, V., Serrano, G., Beach, T., Lesage,. 2018-10-26. Heritability and genetic variance of dementia with Lewy bodies. https://doi.org/10.1101/454249

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Cell Types in Describing Neuronal Physiological Features

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) captures detailed gene expression profiles at scale, while patch-clamp recordings measure intrinsic neuronal electrophysiological properties. Modeling the relations between these two modalities remains a challenge. Here, we compare how well electrophysiological features can be predicted by traditional transcriptomic cell type classification, representations derived from a foundational model (scGPT) pretrained on large-scale scRNA-seq datasets, ion channel-coding genes, and highly variable genes. Using paired transcriptomic and electrophysiological patch-sequencing data from 495 human neurons from neurosurgical tissue, we find that cluster-level cell type representations consistently outperform highly variable gene selection, ion channel gene selection, and context-enriched scGPT embeddings. Notably, performance varies across model architectures and initializations, and the best results are obtained by combining the outputs of separate cell type and scGPT-based models. Together, these findings suggest that traditional discrete cellular classification is highly effective in predicting physiological features. For maximum performance it can be complemented by pretrained transformer models.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

A nonlinear inhibition pathway underlying cortical responses to tuned holographic optogenetic perturbations

Optogenetics enables causal manipulation of cortical activity. Perturbation responses can be counterintuitive due to network interactions, making theory essential for predicting them. Existing approaches often rely on linear approximations, which fail for many biologically relevant perturbations. Here we develop a nonlinear theory of responses to holographic perturbations in cell-type-specific recurrent networks with structured connectivity. We fit a nonlinear model to mouse V1 data, which shows cotuned-ensemble suppression: perturbing spatially clustered neurons with similar preferred orientations yields markedly stronger short-range suppression than perturbing untuned ensembles. We show that cotuned-ensemble suppression arises from a feature-tuned, nonlinear inhibition pathway implicating somatostatin-positive (SST) interneurons. The theory predicts that cotuned ensembles suppress parvalbumin-positive (PV) neurons but facilitate SST neurons, and links the degree of cotuned-ensemble suppression or facilitation to the variance of the SST response. This framework identifies mechanisms by which nonlinear inhibition sculpts cortical dynamics and establishes a predictive basis for targeted optogenetic interventions.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Proteomic signatures of APOE ε4 across human tissues and cell types in Alzheimers disease

The apolipoprotein E {varepsilon}4 (APOE {varepsilon}4) allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimers disease (AD). However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. This study included 1691 participants from the Religious Orders Study and Rush Memory and Aging Project (ROSMAP), 1226 participants from the Accelerating Medicines Partnership - Alzheimers Disease (AMP-AD) Diverse Cohorts Study, and 735 participants from the Alzheimers Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). To characterise APOE {varepsilon}4 molecular effects, we analysed proteomic data from plasma, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived astrocytes and neurons, as well as transcriptomic and proteomic data from multiple brain regions. The association of APOE {varepsilon}4 with AD neuropathology was also examined. APOE {varepsilon}4 carriers shared a plasma proteomic signature enriched for immune processes, irrespective of AD diagnosis. A machine learning classifier trained on this signature discriminated APOE {varepsilon}4 carriers from non-carriers in an independent cohort using CSF proteomics. APOE {varepsilon}4 carriage was associated with higher Braak stages and Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimers Disease (CERAD) score. However, only limited APOE {varepsilon}4-associated transcriptomic and proteomic changes were observed in bulk brain tissue, with poor cross-layer concordance. Proteomic analyses of iPSC-derived astrocytes and neurons further revealed cell-type-specific APOE {varepsilon}4-associated changes. APOE {varepsilon}4 is associated with a consistent proteomic signature across plasma and CSF. Its molecular effects in the brain differ across cell types, brain regions and molecular layers. These findings support the need for cell-type-resolved multi-omic studies to elucidate how APOE {varepsilon}4 confers AD risk.

neuroscience↗