Molecular insights into the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease and its relationship to normal aging.

ABSTRACT: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder that diverges from the process of normal brain aging by unknown mechanisms. We analyzed the global structure of age- and disease-dependent gene expression patterns in three regions from more than 600 brains. Gene expression variation could be almost completely explained by four transcriptional biomarkers that we named BioAge (biological age), Alz (Alzheimer), Inflame (inflammation), and NdStress (neurodegenerative stress). BioAge captures the first principal component of variation and includes genes statistically associated with neuronal loss, glial activation, and lipid metabolism. Normally BioAge increases with chronological age, but in AD it is prematurely expressed as if some of the subjects were 140 years old. A componen

SUBMITTER: Podtelezhnikov AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3247273 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature