Alzheimer’s disease Archives | Page 3 of 3

Researchers tested antiviral, anticancer, and immunosuppressive drug combinations that may aid in treating neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease.

Figure 5. Neratinib and AR12 combine to reduce the expression of HSP90, HSP70, GRP78 and HSP27 via autophagy.

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Heat shock proteins (HSPs), also known today as stress proteins, were first observed in fruit flies in the 1960s. After Dr. Ferruccio Ritossa inadvertently subjected a preparation of fruit fly salivary glands to a non-lethal increase in temperature, he discovered a new pattern of chromosomal “puffing.” In 1974, researchers identified the proteins that were encoded by the “puffs” recorded by Dr. Ritossa, and named them heat shock proteins.

These newfound proteins appeared to only become detectable when the cells were heated. Researchers later learned that HSPs can also be induced by oxidants, toxins, heavy metals, free radicals, viruses, and other stressors. Since its discovery, variations of this genetic system have been found in all bacteria, plants, and animals—including humans. HSPs have been well-studied since this revelation, and researchers now believe these molecular chaperones play important roles in protein refolding, aging-related diseases, and overall longevity.

“Toxic misfolded proteins are key drivers of AD [Alzheimer’s disease], ALS [Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis], HC [Huntington’s Chorea] and other neurodegenerative diseases.”

Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University, Translational Genomics Research Institute, and the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute took part in a research study experimenting with combinations of therapeutic agents that may improve neurodegenerative diseases. In 2021, their paper was published in Aging’s Volume 13, Issue 13, and entitled, “Inhibition of heat shock proteins increases autophagosome formation, and reduces the expression of APP, Tau, SOD1 G93A and TDP-43.”

“In this paper we examined using isogenic colon cancer cells [with] several existing drugs that function by increasing autophagy and degrading misfolded proteins.”

THE STUDY

“Aberrant expression of chaperone proteins is found in many human pathologies including cancer, in virology and in AD, ALS and HC.”

In this study, researchers tested drugs that have been used preclinically and clinically in several anticancer studies. The drugs used were: AR12, an antiviral chaperone ATPase inhibitor; Neratinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor; a combination of AR12 and Neratinib; Fingolimod, an immunosuppressive sphingosine l-phosphate receptor modulator; MMF, monomethyl fumarate; and a combination of Fingolimod and MMF.

The cells they tested these drug combinations on in vitro included Vero cells (African Green Monkey kidney cells), isogenic HCT116 colon cancer cells (genetically manipulated colon cancer cells), and GB6 cells (glioblastoma cancer stem cells). They also used plasmids, antibodies, and siRNAs. Researchers acknowledged that the use of non-neuronal cells may be a limitation of this study.

“Our present studies were performed in non-neuronal cells and as a caveat, it is possible that our data in HCT116 and Vero cells will not be reflective of the same processes in neuronal cells.”

Despite this caveat, results from their research were promising. Some combinations of these drugs were capable of knocking down many disease specific proteins that form toxic aggregates inside cells and in extracellular environments via autophagy.

CONCLUSION

“As the mechanism of drug-action became clearer it was apparent that these agents should also be tested in neurodegenerative diseases. The entire neurodegenerative field needs rapid translational methods that target the underlying cause of disease, toxic misfolded protein. The findings from this work warrant further testing with a focus on clinical utility.”

Click here to read the full research paper, published by Aging.

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Researchers used a bioinformatics approach (ESHRD) that leverages gene expression data from brain tissue to derive cell-type specific alterations in Alzheimer’s disease.

Neurons cells from the brain under the microscope.

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Cell-to-cell variability in the human brain is significantly heterogeneous. An abundance of differential brain cell types makes it laborious and expensive for researchers to generate single-cell gene expression data. While some studies use laser capture microdissection (LCM) and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-Seq) to directly address the cellular heterogeneity in brain tissue, due to labor and cost, these studies generally have a small sample size and face power concerns. Most gene expression profiling studies of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are conducted post-mortem using brain tissue homogenates.

“Ultimately, the overall goal of gene expression profiling in AD is to understand the transcriptome changes in all major cell types of the brain in a well-powered approach that would facilitate the exploration of all the variables mentioned above.”

The need existed for a cost-effective bioinformatics approach to leverage expression profiling data from brain homogenate tissue to derive cell type-specific differential expression and pathway analysis results. In 2020, researchers from Columbia University Medical Center, The University of Sydney School of Medicine, University of Miami, and the Banner Sun Health Research Institute described an Enrichment Score Homogenate RNA Deconvolution (ESHRD) method for identifying alterations in the brain. They published a research paper in Aging’s Volume 12, Issue 5, entitled: “ESHRD: deconvolution of brain homogenate RNA expression data to identify cell-type-specific alterations in Alzheimer’s disease.”

The Study

“We applied our approach to different gene expression datasets derived from brain homogenate profiling from AD patients and Non-Demented controls (ND) from 7 different brain regions.”

Researchers conducted brain region cell-specific pathway analysis and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA). The team mapped and measured five different cell types in seven different brain regions. The cell types included: microglia, neuron, endothelial, astrocyte, and oligodendrocyte. Endothelial and oligodendrocyte are two cell types that are not easily examined in the brain and only very little gene expression data previously existed for Alzheimer’s disease.

“We conducted RNA expression profiling from both brain homogenates and oligodendrocytes obtained by LCM from the same donor brains and then calculated differential expression.”

The researchers used a dataset of Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) patients (n = 4) and controls (n = 5) to validate their ESHRD method. Homogenate, LCM, and scRNA-Seq results were compared using the ESHRD method. They also compared their findings to other research studies.

Results

“The ESHRD approach replicates previously published findings in neurons from AD patient brain specimens, and we extended our work to characterize novel AD-related changes in relatively unexplored cell types in AD, oligodendrocytes and endothelial cells.”

Neuronal, endothelial cells, and microglia were found to be the most represented “cell-specific” gene classes in patient brains with Alzheimer’s disease. Neuronal-specific genes were downregulated and enriched for synaptic processes. Endothelial genes were found to be upregulated in AD and enriched for angiogenesis and vascular functional processes.

“Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs) we labeled as “mixed” represent the most prevalent class (73.4%), followed by DEGs labeled as microglia (6.6%), neuron (5.9%) and endothelial (5.7%). Astrocyte and oligodendrocyte labeled DEGs have a frequency of 3.6% and 3.1%, respectively.”

Microglia showed different patterns of expression across the brain in multiple regions. They found that astrocyte genes were enriched in SLC transport and immune processes and oligodendrocytes were enriched for the Glycoprotein metabolism in Alzheimer’s disease.

Conclusion

“We demonstrate the ability of this approach to highlight known neuronal-specific changes in the AD brain and utilize it to identify novel changes in endothelial cells and oligodendrocytes, two cell types not easily examined in the brain and for which only minimal gene expression knowledge exists in AD.”

Click here to read the full study, published by Aging.

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