Assessing the repurposing potential of disease-modifying antirheumatic drug targets to reduce Alzheimer's disease
Christina N Kushnir1, Victoria Taylor-Bateman1, Neil M Davies1,2,3
1Division of Psychiatry, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
Background:
Systemic inflammation plays a key role in the development and progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the repurposing potential of select anti-inflammatory drug targets for AD treatment remains unclear.
Methods:
Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) and colocalization analyses were conducted to estimate the effects of select disease-modifying antirheumatic (DMARD) targets on AD risk. We investigated 9 DMARD targets, using blood protein quantitative trait loci (pQTLs) from the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project (n = 54,219). Outcome associations were extracted from the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project (ncases = 21,982, ncontrols = 41,944).
Results:
Our MR estimates suggest that higher levels of FCGR3B, an etanercept target, increased the risk of AD (OR: 1.10; 95% CI [1.02, 1.19]; p = 0.01). We found little evidence that the remaining DMARD targets affected AD risk. Colocalization analysis provided little evidence that target pQTLs, including FCGR3B, colocalized with AD.
Conclusions:
Our findings suggest a causal effect of FCGR3B on AD risk, but not for the remainder of the analyzed DMARD targets. Further research is recommended to elucidate the causal role of FCGR3B in AD and build upon the current literature on viable AD therapeutic targets.
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