Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States of America.
Cell Commun Signal. 2024 Jun 7;22(1):317. doi: 10.1186/s12964-024-01686-8.
BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia and is characterized by amyloid-β plaques, tau neurofibrillary tangles, and neuronal loss. Although neuronal loss is a primary hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, it is known that non-neuronal cell populations are ultimately responsible for maintaining brain homeostasis and neuronal health through neuron-glia and glial cell crosstalk. Many signaling pathways have been proposed to be dysregulated in Alzheimer's disease, including WNT, TGFβ, p53, mTOR, NFkB, and Pi3k/Akt signaling. Here, we predict altered cell-cell communication between glia and neurons. METHODS: Using public snRNA-sequencing data generated from postmortem human prefrontal cortex, we predicted altered cell-cell communication between glia (astrocytes, microglia, oligodendrocytes, and oligodendrocyte progenitor cells) and neurons (excitatory and inhibitory). We confirmed interactions in a second and third independent orthogonal dataset. We determined cell-type-specificity using Jaccard Similarity Index and investigated the downstream effects of altered interactions in inhibitory neurons through gene expression and transcription factor activity analyses of signaling mediators. Finally, we determined changes in pathway activity in inhibitory neurons. RESULTS: Cell-cell communication between glia and neurons is altered in Alzheimer's disease in a cell-type-specific manner. As expected, ligands are more cell-type-specific than receptors and targets. We identified ligand-receptor pairs in three independent datasets and found involvement of the Alzheimer's disease risk genes APP and APOE across datasets. Most of the signaling mediators of these interactions were not significantly differentially expressed, however, the mediators that are also transcription factors had differential activity between AD and control. Namely, MYC and TP53, which are associated with WNT and p53 signaling, respectively, had decreased TF activity in Alzheimer's disease, along with decreased WNT and p53 pathway activity in inhibitory neurons. Additionally, inhibitory neurons had both increased NFkB signaling pathway activity and increased TF activity of NFIL3, an NFkB signaling-associated transcription factor. CONCLUSIONS: Cell-cell communication between glia and neurons in Alzheimer's disease is altered in a cell-type-specific manner involving Alzheimer's disease risk genes. Signaling mediators had altered transcription factor activity suggesting altered glia-neuron interactions may dysregulate signaling pathways including WNT, p53, and NFkB in inhibitory neurons.
背景:阿尔茨海默病是痴呆症最常见的病因,其特征是淀粉样β斑块、tau 神经原纤维缠结和神经元丧失。尽管神经元丧失是阿尔茨海默病的主要标志,但已知非神经元细胞群通过神经元-胶质细胞和神经胶质细胞相互作用最终负责维持大脑内环境平衡和神经元健康。许多信号通路被认为在阿尔茨海默病中失调,包括 WNT、TGFβ、p53、mTOR、NFkB 和 Pi3k/Akt 信号通路。在这里,我们预测胶质细胞和神经元之间的细胞间通讯发生改变。
方法:使用来自死后人类前额叶皮层的公共 snRNA-seq 数据,我们预测了胶质细胞(星形胶质细胞、小胶质细胞、少突胶质细胞和少突胶质细胞前体细胞)和神经元(兴奋性和抑制性)之间改变的细胞间通讯。我们在第二个和第三个独立的正交数据集确认了相互作用。我们使用 Jaccard 相似性指数确定了细胞类型特异性,并通过信号转导介质的基因表达和转录因子活性分析研究了改变的相互作用对抑制性神经元的下游影响。最后,我们确定了抑制性神经元中途径活性的变化。
结果:阿尔茨海默病中胶质细胞和神经元之间的细胞间通讯以细胞类型特异性的方式发生改变。正如预期的那样,配体比受体和靶标更具细胞类型特异性。我们在三个独立的数据集中确定了配体-受体对,并发现了阿尔茨海默病风险基因 APP 和 APOE 在数据集中的参与。这些相互作用的大多数信号转导介质没有显著差异表达,然而,也是转录因子的介质具有 AD 和对照之间的差异活性。即,与 WNT 和 p53 信号相关的 MYC 和 TP53,其在阿尔茨海默病中的 TF 活性降低,以及抑制性神经元中 WNT 和 p53 途径活性降低。此外,抑制性神经元既有 NFkB 信号通路活性增加,也有 NFkB 信号相关转录因子 NFIL3 的 TF 活性增加。
结论:阿尔茨海默病中胶质细胞和神经元之间的细胞间通讯以涉及阿尔茨海默病风险基因的细胞类型特异性方式发生改变。信号转导介质具有改变的转录因子活性,表明胶质细胞-神经元相互作用的改变可能会使包括 WNT、p53 和 NFkB 在内的信号通路失调在抑制性神经元中。
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