Network Medicine Approach for Analysis of Alzheimer's Disease Gene Expression Data

Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Jan 3;21(1):332. doi: 10.3390/ijms21010332.

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most widespread diagnosed cause of dementia in the elderly. It is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes memory loss as well as other detrimental symptoms that are ultimately fatal. Due to the urgent nature of this disease, and the current lack of success in treatment and prevention, it is vital that different methods and approaches are applied to its study in order to better understand its underlying mechanisms. To this end, we have conducted network-based gene co-expression analysis on data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database. By processing and filtering gene expression data taken from the blood samples of subjects with varying disease states and constructing networks based on that data to evaluate gene relationships, we have been able to learn about gene expression correlated with the disease, and we have identified several areas of potential research interest.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; gene expression; network medicine; neurodegeneration; neuroinflammation.

MeSH terms

  • Alzheimer Disease / genetics*
  • Gene Expression
  • Gene Regulatory Networks*
  • Genomics
  • Humans