{"id":109166,"date":"2025-05-17T13:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T13:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/109166\/"},"modified":"2025-05-17T13:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T13:56:07","slug":"alzheimers-disrupts-the-whole-body-not-just-the-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/109166\/","title":{"rendered":"Alzheimer\u2019s Disrupts the Whole Body, Not Just the Brain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Summary: <\/strong>Alzheimer\u2019s disease is traditionally seen as a brain disorder, but new research using fruit flies reveals that it also affects organs and tissues throughout the body. Scientists created an Alzheimer\u2019s Disease Fly Cell Atlas to profile gene expression across 219 cell types in flies expressing human Alzheimer\u2019s proteins.<\/p>\n<p>They found that A\u03b242 mainly damages neurons, particularly those tied to senses like smell, while Tau impacts peripheral tissues, disrupting metabolism, digestion, and fertility. These findings highlight how Alzheimer\u2019s disrupts brain-body communication and accelerates aging-like changes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key Facts:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Whole-Body Impact:<\/strong> A\u03b242 and Tau proteins affect both brain and peripheral tissues.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Distinct Effects:<\/strong> A\u03b242 harms sensory neurons, while Tau disrupts metabolism and fertility.<\/li>\n<li><strong>New Research Tool:<\/strong> The Fly Cell Atlas enables exploration of Alzheimer\u2019s beyond the brain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong>Baylor College of Medicine<\/p>\n<p><strong>While Alzheimer\u2019s disease is mostly considered a disorder of the brain, emerging evidence suggests that the condition also affects other organs of the body. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Working with the laboratory fruit fly, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children\u2019s Hospital (Duncan NRI) and collaborating institutions provide a new understanding of how Alzheimer\u2019s disease affects different tissues across the entire body.<\/p>\n<p>  <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"799\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Alzheimers-whole-body-neuroscience.jpg\" alt=\"This shows a head.\"  \/> The researchers created Alzheimer\u2019s disease fruit flies by expressing A\u03b242 or Tau only in the neurons of adult flies. Credit: Neuroscience News<\/p>\n<p>The findings, published in\u00a0Neuron, reveal new insights into brain-body communication in neurodegeneration and pave the way for identifying novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets for Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlzheimer\u2019s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the accumulation in the brain of amyloid plaques containing the A\u03b242 protein and tangles of thread-like structures of the Tau protein.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo better understand how the disorder affects other organs in the body, we created an Alzheimer\u2019s Disease Fly Cell Atlas, which profiles the genes expressed by single cells of 219 cell types in the heads and bodies of Alzheimer\u2019s disease fruit flies,\u201d said co-corresponding author\u00a0Dr. \u00a0Hongjie Li, assistant professor of molecular and human genetics and the Huffington Center on Aging at Baylor.<\/p>\n<p>He is also a member of Baylor\u2019s Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers created Alzheimer\u2019s disease fruit flies by expressing A\u03b242 or Tau only in the neurons of adult flies. This approach avoids developmental effects and focuses on adult characteristics. Then, they assessed the presence of changes in the brains and other organs of these modified flies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe found that expressing A\u03b242 or Tau in neurons affected both neurons and other tissues in the fruit fly body,\u201d said co-first author\u00a0Ye-Jin Park, a graduate student co-mentored by Li and Dr.\u00a0Hugo Bellen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA\u03b242 expression primarily affected the nervous system. Sensory neurons involved in vision, audition and olfaction were particularly vulnerable. A decline in the sense of smell can be an early symptom of Alzheimer\u2019s disease, and in this study we identified specific olfactory neurons affected by A\u03b242 in fruit flies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the other hand, Tau expression in neurons led to significant changes, mostly in peripheral tissues, for instance altered fat metabolism and digestion and reduced fecundity. These alterations mimic age-associated changes, suggesting that Tau expression accelerates aging,\u201d said co-first author\u00a0Dr. Tzu-Chiao Lu, a postdoctoral associate in the Li lab.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe found that neuronal connectivity and other factors that mediate brain-body communication were disrupted in Tau flies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese and other findings described in the Alzheimer\u2019s Disease Fly Cell Atlas improve our understanding of how Alzheimer\u2019s disease-associated proteins, A\u03b242 and Tau, affect an organism as a whole,\u201d said Bellen, co-corresponding author of the work. Bellen is a Distinguished Service Professor of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor and chair in neurogenetics<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>in the Duncan NRI.<\/p>\n<p>This comprehensive resource serves as a valuable tool for the neurodegeneration research community. The Alzheimer\u2019s Disease Fly Cell Atlas enables further exploration of whole-body changes and brain-body interactions in Alzheimer\u2019s disease that may lead to a better understanding of the condition and improved treatments.<\/p>\n<p>Other contributors to this work include Tyler Jackson, Lindsey goodman, Lindsey Ran, Jiaye Chen, Chung-Yi Liang, Erin Harrison, Christina Ko, Xi Chen, Baiping Wang, Ao-Lin Hsu, Elizabeth Ochoa, Kevin F. Bieniek, Shinya Yamamoto, Yi Zhu, Hui Zheng and Yanyan Qi. The authors are affiliated with one or more of the following institutions: Baylor College of Medicine, Jan and Dan neurological Research Institute at Texas Children\u2019s Hospital, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University \u2013 Taiwan, University of Michigan and U.T. Health San Antonio.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Funding: <\/strong>This study was supported by grants from NIH\/NIA R01-AG073260, OD R24-OD02205, OD R24-OD031447, NIH\/NIGMS R01-GM067858, NIH\/NIA U01-AG072439, the Huffington Foundation, the endowment of the Chair of the Neurological Research Institute, a CPRIT Scholarship in Cancer Research (RR200063) and NIH\/NIA U01-AG086143.<\/p>\n<p>About this Alzheimer\u2019s disease research news<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ffffe8\"><strong>Author: <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#6921060408473e081b1b0c07290b0a04470c0d1c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Homa Warren<\/a><br \/><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bcm.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Baylor College of Medicine<\/a><br \/><strong>Contact: <\/strong>Homa Warren \u2013 Baylor College of Medicine<br \/><strong>Image: <\/strong>The image is credited to Neuroscience News<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ffffe8\"><strong>Original Research: <\/strong>Open access.<br \/>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1016\/j.neuron.2025.04.017\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Distinct systemic impacts of A\u03b242 and Tau revealed by whole-organism snRNA-seq<\/a>\u201d by Hongjie Li et al. Neuron<\/p>\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Distinct systemic impacts of A\u03b242 and Tau revealed by whole-organism snRNA-seq<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Both neuronal and peripheral tissues become disrupted in Alzheimer\u2019s disease (AD). However, a comprehensive understanding of how AD impacts different tissues across the whole organism is lacking.<\/p>\n<p>Using\u00a0Drosophila, we generated an AD Fly Cell Atlas (AD-FCA) based on whole-organism single-nucleus transcriptomes of 219 cell types from flies expressing AD-associated proteins, either human amyloid-\u03b2 42 peptide (A\u03b242) or Tau, in neurons.<\/p>\n<p>We found that A\u03b242 primarily affects the nervous system, including sensory neurons, while Tau induces accelerated aging in peripheral tissues. We identified a neuronal cluster enriched in A\u03b242 flies, which has high lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) expression.<\/p>\n<p>This LDH-high cluster is conserved in 5XFAD mouse and human AD datasets. We found a conserved defect in fat metabolism from both fly and mouse tauopathy models.<\/p>\n<p>The AD-FCA offers new insights into how A\u03b242 or Tau systemically and differentially affects a whole organism and provides a valuable resource for understanding brain-body communication in neurodegeneration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary: Alzheimer\u2019s disease is traditionally seen as a brain disorder, but new research using fruit flies reveals that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[231,13462,215,267,105,219,233,220,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-109166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-alzheimers-disease","9":"tag-baylor-college-of-medicine","10":"tag-brain-research","11":"tag-genetics","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-neurobiology","14":"tag-neurology","15":"tag-neuroscience","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114523523222643098","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}