Epigenomics of Alzheimers Disease
Alzheimer's disease is a very complex disease that not much is known about. There is no cure for Alzheimer's, it is a progressive brain disease that destroys the memories and the ability to think in the people it affects. Alzheimer's mostly affects people 65 and older, although in rare cases symptoms can appear anywhere from the age of 30 on. Genetics plays a large role in Alzheimer's disease although it is likely that environmental factors are involved as well. It is said that damages to the brain can occur as early as a decade before symptoms become prevalent in an individual. Many studies have been done to try to shed some light on Alzheimer disease, one of which done by an interdisciplinary team at MIT and the Broad institute analyzed changes that occur in genes in regions that regulate the genes of Alzheimer's.
This study used mice that were engineered so that the gene for a protein called p25 would be overstimulated in the brain. This creates very similar symptoms to that of Alzheimer's in humans. With these mice they would be able to study changes that occur during early stages of Alzheimer's for the first time. The idea was that they would compare them to the later stages and symptoms. The study showed that "Neuronal plasticity processes that are involved in learning and memory
were dampened, and immune and inflammatory pathways were activated." They found that microglia, a type of immune cell whose job it is to clear infected or damaged cells as well as secrete chemicals that produce inflammation, are a large part of the progression of Alzheimer's. They are still unsure of what exactly these cells do to further the development of Alzheimer's, however they play a large role in normal brain function and share a key cell surface marker with macrophages that infiltrate the brain during the progression of Alzheimer's.
The results of this experiment showed that in both mice and humans the functional conversions were not restricted to protein coding genes, which opens up new doors for studying organs such as the brain in model organisms and how they respond to things such as disease. During this experiment they were able to map out the epigenome for Alzheimer's, this is a huge step for Alzheimer's, the research showed that genetic variants were associated with immune processes instead of neural processes. This means that Alzheimer's may not be a genetic predisposition to the repression of neural pathways, but a consequence of environmental factors as well as aging and altered immune pathways. This study will largely help the study of Alzheimer's and maybe one day help to prevent Alzheimer's progression.
Link to article:
Epigenomics of Alzheimer's
Additional link:
Alzheimer's Facts
Alzheimer's is such a terrible disease. My grandfather had Alzheimer's disease, so I have seen firsthand how sad and devastating it can be. This study seems to have been a huge step in discovering more and pertinent information about treating Alzheimer's, which is amazing. It is such a complex disease and any information to cure or slow the progression would be awesome. It is so interesting to think that the mapping of the epigenome can offer so much information for not only this disease, but many other diseases.
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