Preservation Analysis on Spatiotemporal Specific Co-expression Networks Suggests the Immunopathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

The occurrence and development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a continuous clinical and pathophysiological process, molecular biological, and brain functional change often appear before clinical symptoms, but the detailed underlying mechanism is still unclear. The expression profiling of postmortem brain tissue from AD patients and controls provides evidence about AD etiopathogenesis. In the current study, we used published AD expression profiling data to construct spatiotemporal specific coexpression networks in AD and analyzed the network preservation features of each brain region in different disease stages to identify the most dramatically changed coexpression modules and obtained AD-related biological pathways, brain regions and circuits, cell types and key genes based on these modules. As result, we constructed 57 spatiotemporal specific networks (19 brain regions by three disease stages) in AD and observed universal expression changes in all 19 brain regions. The eight most dramatically changed coexpression modules were identified in seven brain regions. Genes in these modules are mostly involved in immune response-related pathways and non-neuron cells, and this supports the immune pathology of AD and suggests the role of blood brain barrier (BBB) injuries. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) meta-analysis and protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analysis suggested potential key genes involved in AD development that might be therapeutic targets. In conclusion, our systematical network analysis on published AD expression profiling data suggests the immunopathogenesis of AD and identifies key brain regions and genes.