Project description:Detecting and understanding Alzheimer's disease (AD) in its early stages is essential for uncovering the initial mechanisms behind its neuropathology and devising effective interventions. In this study, we leveraged the humanized AppNL-G-F mouse which exhibits early-onset amyloid pathology along a predictable timeline, to investigate molecular changes in the hippocampus and blood before the onset of severe neuropathology and independent of aging. Employing a multi-omics approach, we identified alterations in chromatin accessibility, gene expression, and DNA methylation associated with early amyloidosis. Chromatin accessibility changes were prominent in excitatory neurons during early pathology, with a later shift to inhibitory neurons, potentially reflecting compensatory mechanisms to mitigate excitatory neuron dysregulation. Despite broadly comparable hippocampal cell composition, transcriptomic comparisons between wild-type and AppNL-G-F mice revealed major gene expression differences, particularly in pathways related to mitochondrial function and protein biosynthesis, preceding severe amyloid plaque deposition. In later stages, upregulation of immune and neuroinflammatory pathways was observed, aligning with established neuroinflammatory processes in AD. Additionally, we identified extensive DNA methylation differences in both the blood and hippocampus of AppNL-G-F mice during early and late stages of pathology. Many differentially methylated regions in the blood, even at early pathology stages, were associated with cis-regulatory elements in the brain and were located near differentially expressed genes in the hippocampus. These regions were enriched in pathways related to brain function, such as neuron development and synaptic processes, indicating a link between blood methylation patterns and brain function. This suggests the potential utility of blood methylation as a biomarker for early amyloidosis detection. Notably, we identified five candidate biomarker genes, including Rbfox1 and Camta1, with epigenetic dysregulation detectable in both the brain and blood prior to severe amyloid accumulation. Our study, leveraging a unique AD mouse model and a multi-omics approach, highlights epigenetic signatures of AD before the onset of clinical symptoms, providing a foundation for future research into early diagnosis and therapeutic strategies, as well as potential biomarkers.

Project description:Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an unremitting neurodegenerative disorder characterized by cerebral amyloid-β (Aβ) accumulation and gradual decline in cognitive function. Changes in brain energy metabolism arise in the preclinical phase of AD, suggesting an important metabolic component of early AD pathology. Neurons and astrocytes function in close metabolic collaboration, which is essential for the recycling of neurotransmitters in the synapse. However, how this metabolic interplay may be affected during the early stages of AD development has not been sufficiently investigated. Here, we provide an integrative analysis of cellular metabolism during the early stages of Aβ accumulation in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus of the 5xFAD mouse model of AD. Our electrophysiological examination revealed an increase in spontaneous excitatory signaling in hippocampal brain slices of 5xFAD mice. This hyperactive neuronal phenotype coincided with decreased hippocampal TCA cycle metabolism mapped by stable 13C isotope tracing. Particularly, reduced astrocyte TCA cycle activity led to decreased glutamine synthesis, in turn hampering neuronal GABA synthesis in the 5xFAD hippocampus. In contrast, cerebral cortical slices of 5xFAD mice displayed an elevated capacity for oxidative glucose metabolism suggesting a metabolic compensation. When we explored the brain proteome and metabolome of the 5xFAD mice, we found limited changes, supporting that the functional metabolic disturbances between neurons and astrocytes are early events in AD pathology. In addition, we show that synaptic mitochondrial and glycolytic function was impaired selectively in the 5xFAD hippocampus, whereas non-synaptic mitochondrial function was maintained. These findings were supported by ultrastructural analyses demonstrating disruptions in mitochondrial morphology, particularly in the 5xFAD hippocampus. Collectively, our study reveals complex region and cell specific metabolic adaptations, in the early stages of amyloid pathology, which may be fundamental for the progressing synaptic dysfunction in AD.

Project description:We had previously performed comparative gene expression profiling of human postmortem Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brains donated for the Hisayama study. The hippocampi from AD brains showed the most significant alteration in gene expression profile [PMID: 23595620]. In the present study, in order to identify molecular pathological alterations in AD hippocampus, we applied human transcriptome array and RNA-sequencing to the same samples and reanalyzed the gene array data, and performed integrative analysis of all 3 methods. We also applied gene array to hippocampus of 6-month-old AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F knock-in AD model mice as a preclinical AD stage model, and at last we performed the interspecies comparison. Functional annotation clustering with the results of all 3 or at least 2 methods in human, showed synapse, cell junction, calmodulin binding, ion transport and glycoproteins as the top affected terms. In hippocampi of AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice which exhibit significant amyloidosis but not neuronal degeneration, we found that expression of genes categorized in signaling specially signaling peptides with disulfide bond or glycoproteins, together with the innate immune response and lysosome of cells are upregulated. Comparing the extended human data with mouse data, we found and confirmed by qRT-PCR, 2 common up-regulated genes, Clec7a and C4b, which induce innate immune response and synapse elimination. We also found and confirmed by qRT-PCR, 2 common down-regulated genes, one is Slc17a6, which can affect synaptic transmission of glutamate, and second one is Rxfp1, which is involved in gene transcription. Amyloid-beta accumulation is the major hallmark of AD at 6 month-old AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice, therefore our data suggests that amyloid-beta accumulation induces innate immune response, synapse elimination, besides it can decreases glutamate transmission, and affect gene transcription in early stage of hippocampal AD brain, prior to neuronal degeneration.

Project description:Oxidative stress is a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which is characterized by brain atrophy, amyloid plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, and loss of neurons. 8-Oxoguanine, a major oxidatively generated nucleobase highly accumulated in the AD brain, is known to cause neurodegeneration. In mammalian cells, several enzymes play essential roles in minimizing the 8-oxoguanine accumulation in DNA. MUTYH with adenine DNA glycosylase activity excises adenine inserted opposite 8-oxoguanine in DNA. MUTYH is reported to actively contribute to the neurodegenerative process in Parkinson and Huntington diseases and some mouse models of neurodegenerative diseases by accelerating neuronal dysfunction and microgliosis under oxidative conditions; however, whether or not MUTYH is involved in AD pathogenesis remains unclear. In the present study, we examined the contribution of MUTYH to the AD pathogenesis. Using postmortem human brains, we showed that various types of MUTYH transcripts and proteins are expressed in most hippocampal neurons and glia in both non-AD and AD brains. We further introduced MUTYH deficiency into AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F knock-in AD model mice, which produce humanized toxic amyloid-β without the overexpression of APP protein, and investigated the effects of MUTYH deficiency on the behavior, pathology, gene expression, and neurogenesis. MUTYH deficiency improved memory impairment in AppNL-G-F/NL-G-F mice, accompanied by reduced microgliosis. Gene expression profiling strongly suggested that MUTYH is involved in the microglial response pathways under AD pathology and contributes to the phagocytic activity of disease-associated microglia. We also found that MUTYH deficiency ameliorates impaired neurogenesis in the hippocampus, thus improving memory impairment. In conclusion, we propose that MUTYH, which is expressed in the hippocampus of AD patients as well as non-AD subjects, actively contributes to memory impairment by inducing microgliosis with poor neurogenesis in the preclinical AD phase and that MUTYH is a novel therapeutic target for AD, as its deficiency is highly beneficial for ameliorating AD pathogenesis.

Project description:Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a chronic ageing related neurodegenerative disease which is characterized by loss of synapses and neurons in the vulnerable brain regions. Expression perturbations of amyloid β (Aβ) and tau protein in the brain are two hallmarks of AD. Aβ is abnormally generated from amyloid precursor protein (APP) which is broadly distributed in different brain regions including the hippocampus and cortex. It is believed that increased Aβ expression plays a causative role in the early stage of AD pathology. Aβ protein interacts with the signaling pathways that control the phosphorylation of the microtubule-associated protein tau, which eventually disrupts the neuronal circuitry as well as network connectivity leading to neurodegenerative processes observed in AD. In addition, substantial molecular and neurodegenerative changes occur in the initial stage of AD even before the cognitive symptoms are evident, which makes the early diagnosis of AD vital to any timely disease stabilization and treatment. However, despite myriad efforts and substantial progress in the field to decipher the molecular mechanisms of disease onset and its progression, specific causes underlying AD pathology remain ill-defined. There is an urgent need to identify novel mechanism based interventional approaches that can stop, or slow down, the progression of AD. Therefore, it is important to improve the knowledge of the early AD and have a better understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms induced by Aβ. In this study, we performed comparative quantitative proteomics on different brain regions of 2.5 months old APP/PS1 mice (hippocampus, frontal cortex, parietal cortex and cerebellum) in order to investigate the early stage impact of AD. Although over 5000 proteins were identified in all regions, the proteome response across regions was greatly varied. As expected, the greatest proteome perturbation was detected in the hippocampus and frontal cortex (AD-susceptible brain regions), compared to only 155 changed proteins in the cerebellum (less vulnerable region to AD). Increased expression of APP protein was identified in all brain regions. The expression of the majority of the other proteins between hippocampus and cortex areas was not similar, highlighting differential effects of the disease on different brain regions. A series of AD associated markers and pathways were identified as overexpressed in the hippocampus including glutamatergic synapse, GABAergic synapse, retrograde endocannabinoid signaling, long-term potentiation, and calcium signaling. In contrast, the expression of same proteins and pathways was negatively regulated in frontal and parietal cortex regions. Additionally, an increased expression of proteins associated with the oxidative phosphorylation pathway in hippocampus was not evident in the two cortices. Interestingly, an increased expression of proteins involved with myelination, neurofilament cytoskeleton organization, and glutathione metabolism was identified in cortex areas, while these were reduced in the hippocampus. The results obtained from this study highlight important information on brain region specific protein expression changes occurring in the early stages of AD.

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Epigenomic and Transcriptomic Alterations Precede Amyloidosis in the Hippocampus of an Alzheimer's Mouse Model [BiSulfite-seq]

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