Study traces shared and unique cellular hallmarks found in 6 neurodegenerative diseases

ScienceDaily, 21 December 2022. Arizona State University. 

In a study appearing in the current issue of Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer' Association, corresponding author Carol Huseby of Arizona State University and her colleagues look at cellular alterations in six distinct neurodegenerative diseases: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Friedreich's ataxia, frontotemporal dementia, Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease. The selected RNA transcripts reveal eight common themes across the six neurodegenerative diseases: transcription regulation, degranulation (a process involved in inflammation), immune response, protein synthesis, cell death or apoptosis, cytoskeletal components, ubiquitylation/proteasome (involved in protein degradation) and mitochondrial complexes (which oversee energy usage in cells). The eight cellular dysfunctions uncovered are associated with identifiable pathologies in the brain characteristic of each disease.

Blood RNA transcripts reveal similar and differential alterations in fundamental cellular processes in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases

Carol J. Huseby, Elaine Delvaux, Danielle L. Brokaw, Paul D. Coleman; Alzheimer's & Dementia, 2022; DOI: 10.1002/alz.12880 

 We report that transcripts of the blood transcriptome selected for each of the neurodegenerative diseases represent fundamental biological cell processes including transcription regulation, degranulation, immune response, protein synthesis, apoptosis, cytoskeletal components, ubiquitylation/proteasome, and mitochondrial complexes that are also affected in the brain and reveal common themes across six neurodegenerative diseases.