Friday, June 28, 2019

Drosophila studies used to follow up on results of epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) related to Alzheimer's disease

Higham JP, Malik BR, Buhl E, Dawson JM, Ogier AS, Lunnon K, Hodge JJL. Alzheimer's Disease Associated Genes Ankyrin and Tau Cause Shortened Lifespan and Memory Loss in Drosophila. Front Cell Neurosci. 2019 Jun 11;13:260. PubMed PMID: 31244615; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6581016.

From the abstract: "Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and is characterized by intracellular neurofibrillary tangles of hyperphosphorylated Tau, including the 0N4R isoform and accumulation of extracellular amyloid beta (Aβ) plaques. ... Recent epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) of AD have identified a number of loci that are differentially methylated in the AD cortex. Indeed, hypermethylation and reduced expression of the Ankyrin 1 (ANK1) gene in AD has been reported in the cortex in numerous different post-mortem brain cohorts. ... We have generated Drosophila models to allow us to functionally characterize Drosophila Ank2, the ortholog of human ANK1 and to determine its interaction with human Tau and Aβ. ... we show that the mis-expression of Ank2 can drive disease relevant processes and phenocopy some features of AD. Therefore, we propose targeting human ANK1 may have therapeutic potential. This represents the first study to characterize an AD-relevant gene nominated from EWAS."

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