Hippocampal transcriptome-wide association analysis of shared genetic risks between posttraumatic stress disorder and Alzheimer’s disease

The etiopathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is puzzled by the heterogeneous nature of this neurodegenerative disorder. In recent years, clinical and basic research has accentuated a relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and AD risk. Despite several pathways related to neuroinflammation, metabolic disturbances, and stress, emerging evidence implicates genetic risks at the nexus of PTSD and AD. However, the genetic link between the two conditions is relatively understudied. In this study, we adopted tissue-specific transcriptome-wide association studies (TWAS) with a special emphasis on the hippocampus, a shared vulnerable brain region between AD and PTSD to investigate common genetic risks between the two brain disorders. By leveraging large-scale GWAS summary statistics from large-scale AD and PTSD cohorts, we applied FUSION TWAS and identified susceptibility genes common to both disorders. Further functional annotation mounted TWAS-identified cross-disease susceptibility genes to multiple pivotal biological pathways, especially those related to cell metabolism. Metabolic pathway analysis topped lipid metabolism-related pathways such as “acyl-CoA hydrolysis” that overlaps AD and PTSD risk. The simple interpretation of our results is that AD and PTSD share common susceptibility genes. Deregulation of these common susceptibility genes in the hippocampus may potentiate PTSD and AD in sequence through hippocampal dysmetabolism. These findings from computational analysis shed light on the genetic association between AD and PTSD, which will endorse further investigation through experimental approaches for a better understanding of the etiopathogenesis of AD and PTSD as well as the link between the two conditions from a perspective of precision medicine.