Rare Variants in PLD3 Increase Risk for Alzheimer's Disease in Han Chinese

Next-generation sequencing studies had reported that a rare coding variant p.V232M in PLD3 was associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and a two-fold increased AD risk in European cohorts. To test whether coding region variants of PLD3 were associated with AD in a large Han Chinese cohort, we performed sequencing to analyze all exons of PLD3, and demonstrated that rare variants p.I163M and c.1020-8G>A conferred considerable risk of late-onset AD (LOAD) in our cohort. Meanwhile, the previously reported p.V232M variant was identified in our AD group. These findings indicate that rare variants of PLD3 may play an important role in LOAD in northern Han Chinese.