Investigating the Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease: Insights from Microarray Analysis, Mendelian Randomization, and...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience and Genetics
• Biomarker Discovery
• Genomics and Bioinformatics

Background:

• Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a leading cause of dementia with increasing prevalence.
• Current understanding of AD mechanisms is limited, and treatments are not fully effective.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify novel biomarker genes for Alzheimer's disease (AD).
• To elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying AD pathogenesis.
• To integrate multi-omics data and experimental validation for robust findings.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets for microarray analysis.
• Applied Mendelian randomization (MR) to infer causal gene relationships with AD.
• Integrated differential gene expression and MR data to identify hub genes.
• Performed functional enrichment analysis and quantitative real-time PCR validation.

Main Results:

• Identified 312 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and 202 putatively causal genes.
• Discovered four hub genes: FCRLB, MT2A, PFKFB3, and SRGN.
• Found significant associations between AD, immune pathways, and immune cells.
• Validated differential expression for MT2A, PFKFB3, SRGN (upregulated) and FCRLB (downregulated) in clinical AD samples.

Conclusions:

• Successfully identified and validated four potential AD biomarker genes with causal links.
• The study underscores the critical role of the immune microenvironment in AD.
• Findings provide novel insights for AD diagnosis and therapeutic strategy development.