Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 1|pp 690—706

Dysregulation of antimicrobial peptide expression distinguishes Alzheimer’s disease from normal aging

Min Wang¹, I-Feng Peng², Simin Li³, Xianda Hu⁴

¹Department of Rheumatology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
²Suzhou Joekai Biotech LLC, Kunshan, China
³Department of Cariology, Endodontology and Periodontology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
⁴Beijing Tibetan Hospital, China Tibetology Research Centre, Beijing, China

* Equal contribution

Received: July 16, 2019Accepted: December 24, 2019Published: January 6, 2020

Copyright: © 2020 Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease with unknown mechanism that is characterized by the aggregation of abnormal proteins and dysfunction of immune responses. In this study, an integrative approach employing in silico analysis and wet-lab experiment was conducted to estimate the degrees of innate immune system relevant gene expression, neurotoxic Aβ₄₂ generation and neuronal apoptosis in normal Drosophila melanogaster and a transgenic model of AD. Results demonstrated mRNA levels of antimicrobial peptide (AMP) genes gradually increased with age in wild-type flies, while which exhibited a trend for an initial decrease followed by subsequent increase during aging in the AD group. Time series and correlation analysis illustrated indicated a potential relationship between variation in AMP expression and Aβ₄₂ concentration. In conclusion, our study provides evidence for abnormal gene expression of AMPs in AD flies with age, which is distinct from the expression profiles in the normal aging process. Aberrant AMP expression may participate in the onset and development of AD by inducing or accelerating Aβ deposition. These findings suggest that AMPs may serve as potential diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets. However, further studies are required to elucidate the pathological effects and underlying mechanisms of AMP dysregulation in AD progression.