TY - JOUR
T1 - Association of APOE Genotype With Heterogeneity of Cognitive Decline Rate in Alzheimer Disease
AU - Qian, Jing
AU - Betensky, Rebecca A.
AU - Hyman, Bradley T.
AU - Serrano-Pozo, Alberto
N1 - Funding Information:
The Article Processing Charge was funded by NIH.
Funding Information:
J. Qian received research support from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) (R01NS094610) and National Institute on Aging (NIA) (R21AG053695). R.A. Betensky received research support from NINDS (R01NS094610) and NIA (P30AG066512-01 and R21AG053695). B.T. Hyman received research support from NIA (P30 AG062421-01). A. Serrano-Pozo received research support from NINDS (R25NS065743), NIA (K08AG064039), and the Alzheimer's Association (AACF-17-524184). The NACC database is funded by NIA/NIH grant U01 AG016976. NACC data are contributed by the NIA-funded ADCs: P30 AG019610 (principal investigator [PI] Eric Reiman, MD), P30 AG013846 (PI Neil Kowall, MD), P30 AG062428-01 (PI James Leverenz, MD), P50 AG008702 (PI Scott Small, MD), P50 AG025688 (PI Allan Levey, MD, PhD), P50 AG047266 (PI Todd Golde, MD, PhD), P30 AG010133 (PI Andrew Saykin, PsyD), P50 AG005146 (PI Marilyn Albert, PhD), P30 AG062421-01 (PI Bradley Hyman, MD, PhD), P30 AG062422-01 (PI Ronald Petersen, MD, PhD), P50 AG005138 (PI Mary Sano, PhD), P30 AG008051 (PI Thomas Wisniewski, MD), P30 AG013854 (PI Robert Vassar, PhD), P30 AG008017 (PI Jeffrey Kaye, MD), P30 AG010161 (PI David Bennett, MD), P50 AG047366 (PI Victor Henderson, MD, MS), P30 AG010129 (PI Charles DeCarli, MD), P50 AG016573 (PI Frank LaFerla, PhD), P30 AG062429-01 (PI James Brewer, MD, PhD), P50 AG023501 (PI Bruce Miller, MD), P30 AG035982 (PI Russell Swerdlow, MD), P30 AG028383 (PI Linda Van Eldik, PhD), P30 AG053760 (PI Henry Paulson, MD, PhD), P30 AG010124 (PI John Trojanowski, MD, PhD), P50 AG005133 (PI Oscar Lopez, MD), P50 AG005142 (PI Helena Chui, MD), P30 AG012300 (PI Roger Rosenberg, MD), P30 AG049638 (PI Suzanne Craft, PhD), P50 AG005136 (PI Thomas Grabowski, MD), P30 AG062715-01 (PI Sanjay Asthana, MD, FRCP), P50 AG005681 (PI John Morris, MD), and P50 AG047270 (PI Stephen Strittmatter, MD PhD). The authors express their gratitude to the participants and informants involved in research at the US Alzheimer Disease Research Centers.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Academy of Neurology.
PY - 2021/5/11
Y1 - 2021/5/11
N2 - Objective: To test the hypothesis that the APOE genotype is a significant driver of heterogeneity in Alzheimer disease (AD) clinical progression, which could have important implications for clinical trial design and interpretation. Methods: We applied novel reverse-time longitudinal models to analyze the trajectories of Clinical Dementia Rating Sum of Boxes (CDR-SOB) and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores - 2 common outcome measures in AD clinical trials - in 1,102 autopsy-proven AD cases (moderate/frequent neuritic plaques and Braak tangle stage III or greater) from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center Neuropathology database resembling participants with mild to moderate AD in therapeutic clinical trials. Results: APOE ϵ4 carriers exhibited ≈1.5 times faster CDR-SOB increase than APOE ϵ3/ϵ3 carriers (2.12 points per year vs 1.44 points per year) and ≈1.3 times faster increase than APOE ϵ2 carriers (1.65 points per year), whereas APOE ϵ2 vs APOE ϵ3/ϵ3 difference was not statistically significant. APOE ϵ4 carriers had ≈1.1 times faster MMSE decline than APOE ϵ3/ϵ3 carriers (-3.45 vs -3.03 points per year) and ≈1.4 times faster decline than APOE ϵ2 carriers (-2.43 points per year), whereas APOE ϵ2 carriers had ≈1.2 times slower decline than APOE ϵ3/ϵ3 carriers (-2.43 vs -3.03 points per year). These findings remained largely unchanged after controlling for the effect of AD neuropathologic changes on the rate of cognitive decline and for the presence and severity of comorbid pathologies. Conclusion: Compared to the APOE ϵ3/ϵ3 reference genotype, the APOE ϵ2 and ϵ4 alleles have opposite (slowing and accelerating, respectively) effects on the rate of cognitive decline, which are clinically relevant and largely independent of the differential APOE allele effects on AD and comorbid pathologies. Thus, APOE genotype contributes to the heterogeneity in rate of clinical progression in AD.
AB - Objective: To test the hypothesis that the APOE genotype is a significant driver of heterogeneity in Alzheimer disease (AD) clinical progression, which could have important implications for clinical trial design and interpretation. Methods: We applied novel reverse-time longitudinal models to analyze the trajectories of Clinical Dementia Rating Sum of Boxes (CDR-SOB) and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores - 2 common outcome measures in AD clinical trials - in 1,102 autopsy-proven AD cases (moderate/frequent neuritic plaques and Braak tangle stage III or greater) from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center Neuropathology database resembling participants with mild to moderate AD in therapeutic clinical trials. Results: APOE ϵ4 carriers exhibited ≈1.5 times faster CDR-SOB increase than APOE ϵ3/ϵ3 carriers (2.12 points per year vs 1.44 points per year) and ≈1.3 times faster increase than APOE ϵ2 carriers (1.65 points per year), whereas APOE ϵ2 vs APOE ϵ3/ϵ3 difference was not statistically significant. APOE ϵ4 carriers had ≈1.1 times faster MMSE decline than APOE ϵ3/ϵ3 carriers (-3.45 vs -3.03 points per year) and ≈1.4 times faster decline than APOE ϵ2 carriers (-2.43 points per year), whereas APOE ϵ2 carriers had ≈1.2 times slower decline than APOE ϵ3/ϵ3 carriers (-2.43 vs -3.03 points per year). These findings remained largely unchanged after controlling for the effect of AD neuropathologic changes on the rate of cognitive decline and for the presence and severity of comorbid pathologies. Conclusion: Compared to the APOE ϵ3/ϵ3 reference genotype, the APOE ϵ2 and ϵ4 alleles have opposite (slowing and accelerating, respectively) effects on the rate of cognitive decline, which are clinically relevant and largely independent of the differential APOE allele effects on AD and comorbid pathologies. Thus, APOE genotype contributes to the heterogeneity in rate of clinical progression in AD.
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U2 - 10.1212/WNL.0000000000011883
DO - 10.1212/WNL.0000000000011883
M3 - Article
C2 - 33771840
AN - SCOPUS:85107091665
SN - 0028-3878
VL - 96
SP - E2414-E2428
JO - Neurology
JF - Neurology
IS - 19
ER -