ANK1 is up-regulated in laser captured microglia in Alzheimer's brain; the importance of addressing cellular heterogeneity.

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Authors
Mastroeni, D.
Sekar, S.
Nolz, J.
Delvaux, E.
Lunnon, Katie
Mill, Jonathan
Liang, W. S.
Coleman, P. D.
Journal
PloS one
Type
Journal Article
Publisher
PLoS One
Rights
Archived with thanks to PloS one
Recent epigenetic association studies have identified a new gene, ANK1, in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although strong associations were observed, brain homogenates were used to generate the data, introducing complications because of the range of cell types analyzed. In order to address the issue of cellular heterogeneity in homogenate samples we isolated microglial, astrocytes and neurons by laser capture microdissection from CA1 of hippocampus in the same individuals with a clinical and pathological diagnosis of AD and matched control cases. Using this unique RNAseq data set, we show that in the hippocampus, ANK1 is significantly (p<0.0001) up-regulated 4-fold in AD microglia, but not in neurons or astrocytes from the same individuals. These data provide evidence that microglia are the source of ANK1 differential expression previously identified in homogenate samples in AD.
Citation
ANK1 is up-regulated in laser captured microglia in Alzheimer's brain; the importance of addressing cellular heterogeneity. 2017, 12 (7):e0177814 PLoS ONE
Note
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