Project description
Finding early cellular markers of Alzheimer’s disease to preclude symptoms
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. It is an irreversible, progressive neurodegeneration of the brain that impacts memory and cognitive skills, and evidence suggests that the brain changes may begin 20 years or more before the onset of symptoms. Death rates of AD are increasing whereas those for heart disease and cancer are declining. As the ageing population grows, diagnosing the onset of AD before irreversible damage occurs is a pressing public health challenge. The hippocampus is an area of the brain intricately linked to the short-term memory loss that is a hallmark of AD. The EU-funded CTS-TEs-ADprogress project is studying hippocampal cells from a well-established mouse model of AD to identify cell-type-specific changes in gene expression during onset and progression of AD. Insight could point to early cellular harbingers of AD.
Objective
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a major contributor to disease burden and healthcare costs worldwide. AD is usually diagnosed once symptoms like memory impairment become evident. However, at this point typical AD pathology such as Aβ plaques and cell death is already widespread, suggesting that molecular changes have occurred decades before symptom onset. With an increasingly aging population and no available treatments, it has become imperative to identify the molecular mechanisms underlying onset and progression of AD. Chronic environmental stress and age-associated changes in stress response have been associated as drivers of AD pathology. The epigenome plays a critical role in translating stress signals into a cellular response by influencing gene expression, which can either promote or inhibit cell survival. Several studies have shown that alterations in chromatin structure, including heterochromatin loss, and associated changes in gene expression contribute to neurodegeneration. In addition, neuronal death was also linked to transposable element (TE) dysregulation due to epigenetic changes, which can lead to changes in gene expression and insertional mutations due to transposition. However, our understanding of epigenetic changes at onset and during progression of AD pathology is very limited, as current studies have two major limitations: 1) lack of cell type resolution due to use of bulk tissue samples and 2) coverage of only few or only one disease stage.
Here, single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq as well as CUT&RUN on isolated hippocampal neuron subtypes will be used to identify cell type-specific alterations of gene expression and gene regulatory mechanisms during onset and progression of AD pathology in the APP/PS1 mouse model. APP/PS1 mice are a well-established AD model, which recapitulates many characteristics of preclinical AD in human patients and thereby allows correlating the identified changes with the development of specific pathological hallmarks.
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 neurobiology
- medical and health sciences basic medicine neurology dementia alzheimer
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics mutation
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pathology
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics epigenetics epigenomes
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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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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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Topic(s)
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.
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
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.
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.
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)
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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) H2020-MSCA-IF-2019
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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.
53127 Bonn
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.