Project description
Insight into the role of microglia in Alzheimer’s disease
Microglia are the innate immune cells of the central nervous system. Emerging evidence indicates that they become activated around amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), contributing to the creation of a chronic neuroinflammatory environment. Funded by the European Research Council, the XenoMicrogliaAD project is interested to understand how microglia communicate with other cells to contribute to neuronal dysfunction and degeneration in AD. Researchers will generate microglia from human induced pluripotent stem cells and transplant them into a mouse model. They will then study the interaction of microglia with neuronal synapses and the release of inflammatory factors to delineate the mechanism of action of these cells in AD.
Objective
The goal of this project is to decipher the exact cellular and molecular mechanisms by which human microglia transduce toxicity to neurons in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Genetics revealed that microglia are one of the central players in the pathogenesis of AD. I and others have characterized the phenotypic response of microglia in AD using transcriptomic and epigenetic tools. Nevertheless, it is yet to be defined how microglia communicate with other cells in the brain, by which mechanism they lead to neuronal alterations, and what the particular role of different microglial activation states is in this process. I will investigate the two major functional outputs of microglia - namely physical interaction with synapses and release of inflammatory factors that induce neuronal dysfunction and degeneration - in AD. Determining the role of human microglia in AD comes with technical challenges, including lack of homology between mouse and humans, and limited expression of AD risk genes in mouse microglia. I will use a human microglia xenograft model I pioneered where iPSC-derived cells are transplanted into the mouse brain, and in which they adopt a brain resident phenotype and can be exposed to amyloid-b plaques. I plan to combine xenotransplantation of genetically engineered iPSC-derived microglia and neurons, with state-of-the-art strategies to define the human microglia-synapse protein interactome as well as the cell-specific proteome/secretome. I aim to 1) define the surface protein interactome between human microglia and mouse synapses in vivo, 2) co-transplant human microglia and human neurons in the mouse brain to explore human to human specific aspects of this interaction, and 3) investigate the human microglia specific secretome in AD. This project will be the first of its kind to directly study the role of human microglia in the AD brain at cellular and molecular levels, opening new avenues for the development of new therapeutics and biomarkers to tackle disease.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins proteomics
- medical and health sciences basic medicine neurology dementia alzheimer
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2021-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
9052 ZWIJNAARDE - GENT
Belgium
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