Polygenic risk associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other traits influences genes involved in T cell signaling and activation

Abstract

Introduction: T cells, known for their ability to respond to an enormous variety of pathogens and other insults, are increasingly recognized as important mediators of pathology in neurodegeneration and other diseases. T cell gene expression phenotypes can be regulated by disease-associated genetic variants. Many complex diseases are better represented by polygenic risk than by individual variants. Methods: We first compute a polygenic risk score (PRS) for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) using genomic sequencing data from a cohort of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients and age-matched controls, and validate the AD PRS against clinical metrics in our cohort. We then calculate the PRS for several autoimmune disease, neurological disorder, and immune function traits, and correlate these PRSs with T cell gene expression data from our cohort. We compare PRS-associated genes across traits and four T cell subtypes. Results: Several genes and biological pathways associated with the PRS for these traits relate to key T cell functions. The PRS-associated gene signature generally correlates positively for traits within a particular category (autoimmune disease, neurological disease, immune function) with the exception of stroke. The trait-associated gene expression signature for autoimmune disease traits was polarized towards CD4+ T cell subtypes. Discussion: Our findings show that polygenic risk for complex disease and immune function traits can have varying effects on T cell gene expression trends. Several PRS-associated genes are potential candidates for therapeutic modulation in T cells, and could be tested in in vitro applications using cells from patients bearing high or low polygenic risk for AD or other conditions.