Associations of WWC1 variants with Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia among rural older adults in China: A population-based study

Abstract

We sought to examine the associations of common WWC1 variants with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) among rural-dwelling older adults in China. This population-based study used data from the baseline assessments (March –September 2018) of MIND-China. AD and VaD were diagnosed following the international criteria. Of the 5455 participants (age≥60 years, 57.27% women), 182 were diagnosed with AD and 88 with VaD. Logistic regression analysis suggested that WWC1 rs17070145 C allele (vs. T) was associated with multivariable-adjusted odds ratio of 1.23 (95% confidence interval 0.96–1.58) for AD, and that CC genotype (vs. TT) was associated with multivariable-adjusted odds ratio of 2.19(1.10–4.39) for VaD, but the association with VaD became non-significant when further adjusting for stroke history. Furthermore, exonic SNPs rs3822660 and rs3822659 were in strong linkage disequilibrium (LD) with rs17070145 (D’ = 0.88). These results suggest that the strong LD between rs17070145 and 2 exonic SNPs may explain the association of WWC1 rs17070145 C allele with AD and that stroke may partly explain the association of WWC1 rs17070145 CC genotype with VaD.