Expression data from mouse brain cortex

Recent research has shown that peripheral treatment with amylin reduces Alzheimers disease (AD) pathology in the brain and improves learning and memory in AD mouse models. To understand the mechanism underlying this novel treatment for AD, we interrogated the transcriptome for changes in cortical gene expression in amyloid precursor protein (APP) transgenic mice treated with amylin compared to a vehicle treated group and wild type (WT) mice. Using weighted gene co-expression network analysis, we discovered that amylin treatment influenced two gene modules linked to AD pathology: 1) a module related to proinflammation and transport/vesicle process that included a hub gene of Cd68, and 2) a module related to mitochondria function that included a hub gene of Atp5b. Amylin treatment restored the expression of most genes in the APP cortex toward levels observed in the WT cortex including 23 key hub genes in these two modules. In cultured activated microglia cell line BV-2, we validated that Cd68 expression was attenuated by amylin through binding to the amylin receptor. Using publically-available transcriptomic human data, we found that the expression levels of the orthologues of these hub genes, including Cd68 and Atp5b, strongly correlated with the neurofibrillary tangle burden in the AD brain and with Mini-Mental Status Exam scores. Our study is the first to show the transcriptome-wide targets of amylin treatment, and further supports the potential use of amylin-type peptides to treat AD.

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Wang E, Zhu H, Wang X, Gower AC, Wallack M, Blusztajn JK, Kowall N, Qiu WQ