Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive cognitive decline and dementia as well as pre-symptomatic accumulation of amyloid pathology. A number of recently identified AD susceptibility loci contain genes expressed predominantly in myeloid cells, such as monocytes, macrophages and microglia. This suggests the involvement of the innate immune system in AD susceptibility and the accumulation of amyloid pathology. Therefore, we hypothesized that monocyte-derived cells, such as infiltrating macrophages as well as resident microglia are involved in the pathophysiology of AD and, particularly, in the accumulation of amyloid pathology. Our preliminary cis-eQTL analyses of data from healthy young individuals have implicated 16 AD susceptibility genes in myeloid cell function, whose expression, relative to each risk allele, is altered in monocytes and not in T cells that represent the adaptive arm of the immune system. Therefore, these loci represent excellent candidates as the first step in the cascade of molecular events that link genetic risk factors to the altered innate immune function that contributes to AD pathology. The principal goals of the proposed project are (1) to identify and validate the component genes of networks perturbed by the AD susceptibility loci in myeloid cells (2) to understand their functional consequences on monocyte behavior and (3) identify FDA- approved or novel small molecules that modulate the most promising targets for AD therapy in primary human monocytes.

Public Health Relevance

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease involving cognitive decline and dementia, and recent studies show that immune system dysfunction plays an important role in AD. Here, we identify and confirm the molecules that contribute to immune cell malfunction in AD, and we identify the FDA-approved or new drugs that reverse the effect of these molecules and restore the function of the affected immune cells.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01AG048015-02
Application #
8929120
Study Section
Genetics of Health and Disease Study Section (GHD)
Program Officer
Yang, Austin Jyan-Yu
Project Start
2014-09-30
Project End
2019-04-30
Budget Start
2015-05-15
Budget End
2016-04-30
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2015
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Department
Type
DUNS #
030811269
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
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Deming, Yuetiva; Li, Zeran; Kapoor, Manav et al. (2017) Genome-wide association study identifies four novel loci associated with Alzheimer's endophenotypes and disease modifiers. Acta Neuropathol 133:839-856
Chan, Gail; White, Charles C; Winn, Phoebe A et al. (2015) CD33 modulates TREM2: convergence of Alzheimer loci. Nat Neurosci 18:1556-8