Genome-wide Association and Meta-analysis of Age-at-Onset in Parkinson Disease. Evidence From COURAGE-PD Consortium

Background and objectives: Considerable heterogeneity exists in the literature concerning genetic determinants of the age of onset (AAO) of Parkinson's disease (PD), which could be attributed to lack of well-powered replication cohorts. The previous largest GWAS identified SNCA and TMEM175 loci on chromosome (Chr) 4 with a significant influence on AAO of PD, these have not been independently replicated. The present study aims to conduct a meta-analysis of GWAS of PD AAO and validate previously observed findings in worldwide populations. Methods: A meta-analysis was performed on PD AAO GWAS of 30 populations of predominantly European ancestry from the Comprehensive Unbiased Risk Factor Assessment for Genetics and Environment in Parkinson's Disease (COURAGE-PD) consortium. This was followed up by combining our study with the largest publicly available European ancestry dataset compiled by the International Parkinson disease Genomics Consortium (IPDGC). Results: The COURAGE-PD included a cohort of 8,535 patients with PD (91.9%: Europeans, 9.1%: East-Asians). The average AAO in the COURAGE-PD dataset was 58.9 years (SD=11.6), with an under-representation of females (40.2%). The heritability estimate for AAO in COURAGE-PD was 0.083 (SE=0.057). None of the loci reached genome-wide significance (P<5x10-8). Nevertheless, the COURAGE-PD dataset confirmed the role of the previously published TMEM175 variant as genetic determinant of AAO of PD with Bonferroni-corrected nominal levels of significance (P<0.025): (rs34311866:β(SE)COURAGE=0.477(0.203), PCOURAGE=0.0185). The subsequent meta-analysis of COURAGE-PD and IPDGC datasets (Ntotal=25,950) led to the identification of two genome-wide significant association signals on Chr 4, including the previously reported SNCA locus (rs983361:β(SE)COURAGE+IPDGC=0.720(0.122), PCOURAGE+IPDGC=3.13x10-9) and a novel BST1 locus (rs4698412:β(SE)COURAGE+IPDGC=-0.526(0.096), PCOURAGE+IPDGC=4.41x10-8). Discussion: Our study further refines the genetic architecture of Chr 4 underlying the AAO of the PD phenotype through the identification of BST1 as a novel AAO PD locus. These findings open a new direction for the development of treatments to delay the onset of PD.