ORCID Profile
0000-0003-2633-2495
Current Organisations
Fundació ACE. Institut Català de Neurociències Aplicades
,
Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas
,
Universidad de Sevilla
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Publications
Meta-analysis of 74,046 individuals identifies 11 new susceptibility loci for Alzheimer's disease
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-10-2013
DOI: 10.1038/NG.2802
Genetic architecture of sporadic frontotemporal dementia and overlap with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 29-11-2016
Immune-related genetic enrichment in frontotemporal dementia: An analysis of genome-wide association studies
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 09-01-2018
Rare coding variants in PLCG2, ABI3, and TREM2 implicate microglial-mediated innate immunity in Alzheimer's disease
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 17-07-2017
DOI: 10.1038/NG.3916
Common variants in Alzheimer’s disease and risk stratification by polygenic risk scores
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-06-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-021-22491-8
Abstract: Genetic discoveries of Alzheimer’s disease are the drivers of our understanding, and together with polygenetic risk stratification can contribute towards planning of feasible and efficient preventive and curative clinical trials. We first perform a large genetic association study by merging all available case-control datasets and by-proxy study results (discovery n = 409,435 and validation size n = 58,190). Here, we add six variants associated with Alzheimer’s disease risk (near APP, CHRNE, PRKD3/NDUFAF7, PLCG2 and two exonic variants in the SHARPIN gene). Assessment of the polygenic risk score and stratifying by APOE reveal a 4 to 5.5 years difference in median age at onset of Alzheimer’s disease patients in APOE ɛ4 carriers. Because of this study, the underlying mechanisms of APP can be studied to refine the amyloid cascade and the polygenic risk score provides a tool to select in iduals at high risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Gene Expression Imputation Across Multiple Tissue Types Provides Insight Into the Genetic Architecture of Frontotemporal Dementia and Its Clinical Subtypes
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2021
Gene-Wide Analysis Detects Two New Susceptibility Genes for Alzheimer's Disease
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 12-06-2014
Susceptible genes and disease mechanisms identified in frontotemporal dementia and frontotemporal dementia with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis by DNA-methylation and GWAS
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-08-2017
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-017-09320-Z
Abstract: Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a neurodegenerative disorder predominantly affecting the frontal and temporal lobes. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on FTD identified only a few risk loci. One of the possible explanations is that FTD is clinically, pathologically, and genetically heterogeneous. An important open question is to what extent epigenetic factors contribute to FTD and whether these factors vary between FTD clinical subgroup. We compared the DNA-methylation levels of FTD cases (n = 128), and of FTD cases with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (FTD-ALS n = 7) to those of unaffected controls (n = 193), which resulted in 14 and 224 candidate genes, respectively. Cluster analysis revealed significant class separation of FTD-ALS from controls. We could further specify genes with increased susceptibility for abnormal gene-transcript behavior by jointly analyzing DNA-methylation levels with the presence of mutations in a GWAS FTD-cohort. For FTD-ALS, this resulted in 9 potential candidate genes, whereas for FTD we detected 1 candidate gene ( ELP2 ). Independent validation-sets confirmed the genes DLG1, METTL7A, KIAA1147, IGHMBP2, PCNX, UBTD2, WDR35 , and ELP2/SLC39A6 among others. We could furthermore demonstrate that genes harboring mutations and/or displaying differential DNA-methylation, are involved in common pathways, and may therefore be critical for neurodegeneration in both FTD and FTD-ALS.
Chronic neuropsychiatric sequelae of SARS‐CoV‐2: Protocol and methods from the Alzheimer's Association Global Consortium
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 2022
DOI: 10.1002/TRC2.12348
Abstract: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) has caused .5 million deaths worldwide and affected million people. At least twice as many have been infected but remained asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic. COVID‐19 includes central nervous system manifestations mediated by inflammation and cerebrovascular, anoxic, and/or viral neurotoxicity mechanisms. More than one third of patients with COVID‐19 develop neurologic problems during the acute phase of the illness, including loss of sense of smell or taste, seizures, and stroke. Damage or functional changes to the brain may result in chronic sequelae. The risk of incident cognitive and neuropsychiatric complications appears independent from the severity of the original pulmonary illness. It behooves the scientific and medical community to attempt to understand the molecular and/or systemic factors linking COVID‐19 to neurologic illness, both short and long term. This article describes what is known so far in terms of links among COVID‐19, the brain, neurological symptoms, and Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias. We focus on risk factors and possible molecular, inflammatory, and viral mechanisms underlying neurological injury. We also provide a comprehensive description of the Alzheimer's Association Consortium on Chronic Neuropsychiatric Sequelae of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection (CNS SC2) harmonized methodology to address these questions using a worldwide network of researchers and institutions. Successful harmonization of designs and methods was achieved through a consensus process initially fragmented by specific interest groups (epidemiology, clinical assessments, cognitive evaluation, biomarkers, and neuroimaging). Conclusions from subcommittees were presented to the whole group and discussed extensively. Presently data collection is ongoing at 19 sites in 12 countries representing Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe. The Alzheimer's Association Global Consortium harmonized methodology is proposed as a model to study long‐term neurocognitive sequelae of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. The following review describes what is known so far in terms of molecular and epidemiological links among COVID‐19, the brain, neurological symptoms, and AD and related dementias (ADRD) The primary objective of this large‐scale collaboration is to clarify the pathogenesis of ADRD and to advance our understanding of the impact of a neurotropic virus on the long‐term risk of cognitive decline and other CNS sequelae. No available evidence supports the notion that cognitive impairment after SARS‐CoV‐2 infection is a form of dementia (ADRD or otherwise). The longitudinal methodologies espoused by the consortium are intended to provide data to answer this question as clearly as possible controlling for possible confounders. Our specific hypothesis is that SARS‐CoV‐2 triggers ADRD‐like pathology following the extended olfactory cortical network (EOCN) in older in iduals with specific genetic susceptibility. The proposed harmonization strategies and flexible study designs offer the possibility to include large s les of under‐represented racial and ethnic groups, creating a rich set of harmonized cohorts for future studies of the pathophysiology, determinants, long‐term consequences, and trends in cognitive aging, ADRD, and vascular disease. We provide a framework for current and future studies to be carried out within the Consortium. and offers a “green paper” to the research community with a very broad, global base of support, on tools suitable for low‐ and middle‐income countries aimed to compare and combine future longitudinal data on the topic. The Consortium proposes a combination of design and statistical methods as a means of approaching causal inference of the COVID‐19 neuropsychiatric sequelae. We expect that deep phenotyping of neuropsychiatric sequelae may provide a series of candidate syndromes with phenomenological and biological characterization that can be further explored. By generating high‐quality harmonized data across sites we aim to capture both descriptive and, where possible, causal associations.
New insights into the genetic etiology of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41588-022-01024-Z
Abstract: Characterization of the genetic landscape of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias (ADD) provides a unique opportunity for a better understanding of the associated pathophysiological processes. We performed a two-stage genome-wide association study totaling 111,326 clinically diagnosed/‘proxy’ AD cases and 677,663 controls. We found 75 risk loci, of which 42 were new at the time of analysis. Pathway enrichment analyses confirmed the involvement of amyloid/tau pathways and highlighted microglia implication. Gene prioritization in the new loci identified 31 genes that were suggestive of new genetically associated processes, including the tumor necrosis factor alpha pathway through the linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex. We also built a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future AD/dementia or progression from mild cognitive impairment to AD/dementia. The improvement in prediction led to a 1.6- to 1.9-fold increase in AD risk from the lowest to the highest decile, in addition to effects of age and the APOE ε4 allele.
Convergent genetic and expression data implicate immunity in Alzheimer's disease
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 19-12-2014
CXCR4 involvement in neurodegenerative diseases
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-04-2018
DOI: 10.1038/S41398-017-0049-7
Abstract: Neurodegenerative diseases likely share common underlying pathobiology. Although prior work has identified susceptibility loci associated with various dementias, few, if any, studies have systematically evaluated shared genetic risk across several neurodegenerative diseases. Using genome-wide association data from large studies (total n = 82,337 cases and controls), we utilized a previously validated approach to identify genetic overlap and reveal common pathways between progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In addition to the MAPT H1 haplotype, we identified a variant near the chemokine receptor CXCR4 that was jointly associated with increased risk for PSP and PD. Using bioinformatics tools, we found strong physical interactions between CXCR4 and four microglia related genes, namely CXCL12 , TLR2, RALB, and CCR5 . Evaluating gene expression from post-mortem brain tissue, we found that expression of CXCR4 and microglial genes functionally related to CXCR4 was dysregulated across a number of neurodegenerative diseases. Furthermore, in a mouse model of tauopathy, expression of CXCR4 and functionally associated genes was significantly altered in regions of the mouse brain that accumulate neurofibrillary tangles most robustly. Beyond MAPT , we show dysregulation of CXCR4 expression in PSP, PD, and FTD brains, and mouse models of tau pathology. Our multi-modal findings suggest that abnormal signaling across a ‘network’ of microglial genes may contribute to neurodegeneration and may have potential implications for clinical trials targeting immune dysfunction in patients with neurodegenerative diseases.
The BDNFVal66Met SNP modulates the association between beta-amyloid and hippocampal disconnection in Alzheimer’s disease
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-03-2019
Analysis of shared heritability in common disorders of the brain
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 22-06-2018
Abstract: Consistent classification of neuropsychiatric diseases is problematic because it can lead to misunderstanding of etiology. The Brainstorm Consortium examined multiple genome-wide association studies drawn from more than 200,000 patients for 25 brain-associated disorders and 17 phenotypes. Broadly, it appears that psychiatric and neurologic disorders share relatively little common genetic risk. However, different and independent pathways can result in similar clinical manifestations (e.g., psychosis, which occurs in both schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease). Schizophrenia correlated with many psychiatric disorders, whereas the immunopathological affliction Crohn's disease did not, and posttraumatic stress syndrome was also largely independent of underlying traits. Essentially, the earlier the onset of a disorder, the more inheritable it appeared to be. Science , this issue p. eaap8757
Shared genetic contribution to ischemic stroke and Alzheimer's disease
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 30-03-2016
DOI: 10.1002/ANA.24621
Exploring Links Between Psychosis and Frontotemporal Dementia Using Multimodal Machine Learning
Publisher: American Medical Association (AMA)
Date: 09-2022
Author Correction: Genetic meta-analysis of diagnosed Alzheimer's disease identifies new risk loci and implicates Aβ, tau, immunity and lipid processing.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-08-2019
Mendelian randomization implies no direct causal association between leukocyte telomere length and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-07-2020
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-020-68848-9
Abstract: We employed Mendelian randomization (MR) to evaluate the causal relationship between leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with summary statistics from genome-wide association studies ( n = ~ 38,000 for LTL and ~ 81,000 for ALS in the European population n = ~ 23,000 for LTL and ~ 4,100 for ALS in the Asian population). We further evaluated mediation roles of lipids in the pathway from LTL to ALS. The odds ratio per standard deviation decrease of LTL on ALS was 1.10 (95% CI 0.93–1.31, p = 0.274) in the European population and 0.75 (95% CI 0.53–1.07, p = 0.116) in the Asian population. This null association was also detected between LTL and frontotemporal dementia in the European population. However, we found that an indirect effect of LTL on ALS might be mediated by low density lipoprotein (LDL) or total cholesterol (TC) in the European population. These results were robust against extensive sensitivity analyses. Overall, our MR study did not support the direct causal association between LTL and the ALS risk in neither population, but provided suggestive evidence for the mediation role of LDL or TC on the influence of LTL and ALS in the European population.
Pathogenic Huntingtin Repeat Expansions in Patients with Frontotemporal Dementia and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2021
Genome-wide meta-analysis for Alzheimer’s disease cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-09-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S00401-022-02454-Z
Abstract: Amyloid-beta 42 (Aβ42) and phosphorylated tau (pTau) levels in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) reflect core features of the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) more directly than clinical diagnosis. Initiated by the European Alzheimer & Dementia Biobank (EADB), the largest collaborative effort on genetics underlying CSF biomarkers was established, including 31 cohorts with a total of 13,116 in iduals (discovery n = 8074 replication n = 5042 in iduals). Besides the APOE locus, novel associations with two other well-established AD risk loci were observed CR1 was shown a locus for Aβ42 and BIN1 for pTau. GMNC and C16orf95 were further identified as loci for pTau, of which the latter is novel. Clustering methods exploring the influence of all known AD risk loci on the CSF protein levels, revealed 4 biological categories suggesting multiple Aβ42 and pTau related biological pathways involved in the etiology of AD. In functional follow-up analyses, GMNC and C16orf95 both associated with lateral ventricular volume, implying an overlap in genetic etiology for tau levels and brain ventricular volume.
Related Organisations
Centro De Investigación Biomédica En Red Sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas
Location: No location found
Fundació ACE. Institut Català De Neurociències Aplicades
Location: Spain
Centro De Investigación Biomédica En Red Sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas
Location: Spain
Related Funding Activities
No related grants have been discovered for Agustín Ruiz Laza.