About this Research Topic
There is an immediate need to understand healthy aging, understand what leads to neurodegeneration, and develop novel therapies for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative dementias, for which no significant disease-modifying drug exists. According to 2021 estimates, the prevalence rate of AD, the most common form of dementia, among individuals older than 65 years of age was 16% in the USA, which translates to a total economic cost for dementia of about $290 billion. AD is characterized by massive changes in neuronal and glial populations and marked by tangles and plaques, that are pathological hallmarks in AD. Over the years, several research studies have focused on understanding the role of glial cells like microglia, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes in AD pathogenesis, highlighting the role of specific cell types in disease pathophysiology. In addition, several large genome-wide association studies in AD have highlighted that AD risk variants are enriched in specific cell types.
Genomic approaches, investigating quantitative molecular phenotypes and pathways underlying disease progression in a genome-wide manner, have the potential to quickly identify disease-relevant druggable genes. Several large bulk tissue transcriptomic studies have pointed out that glial heterogeneity are hallmarks of the human brain. While genotypic information is shared by most cells of a body, the transcriptomic information varies widely even between cells from the same tissue. This transcriptomic heterogeneity at the cell-type level is critical to understand cell-composition changes in disease. The first goal of this Research Topic is to address current genomic approaches, including single-cell multi-omic approaches, to identify cell-type-specific regulators of AD, unravel factors that lead to resilience in AD in some people, and understand the role of various cell types in disease progression. The second goal of the Research Topic is to address several large-scale whole-genome sequencing projects to identify genome-wide rare variants contributing to AD risk cross populations across multiple ethnicities.
This Research Topic aims to collect high-quality reviews and original research articles covering genetics and genomic approaches to understand neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease. The Research Topic will mainly focus on current state-of-the-art multi-omic approaches including single-cell transcriptomics, single-cell epigenomics, whole-genome, and whole-exome analysis, spatial multi-omics, and integrative genomic approaches in neurodegeneration with a special focus on Alzheimer’s disease.
The research topic will cover themes such as -
• Single-cell transcriptomics and epigenomics in neurodegenerative diseases
• Whole genome sequencing analysis in neurodegenerative diseases
• Spatial multi-omics approaches to understand disease biology
• Integrative multi-omics and functional genomics approaches in neurodegenerative diseases
Genomic approaches, investigating quantitative molecular phenotypes and pathways underlying disease progression in a genome-wide manner, have the potential to quickly identify disease-relevant druggable genes. Several large bulk tissue transcriptomic studies have pointed out that glial heterogeneity are hallmarks of the human brain. While genotypic information is shared by most cells of a body, the transcriptomic information varies widely even between cells from the same tissue. This transcriptomic heterogeneity at the cell-type level is critical to understand cell-composition changes in disease. The first goal of this Research Topic is to address current genomic approaches, including single-cell multi-omic approaches, to identify cell-type-specific regulators of AD, unravel factors that lead to resilience in AD in some people, and understand the role of various cell types in disease progression. The second goal of the Research Topic is to address several large-scale whole-genome sequencing projects to identify genome-wide rare variants contributing to AD risk cross populations across multiple ethnicities.
This Research Topic aims to collect high-quality reviews and original research articles covering genetics and genomic approaches to understand neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease. The Research Topic will mainly focus on current state-of-the-art multi-omic approaches including single-cell transcriptomics, single-cell epigenomics, whole-genome, and whole-exome analysis, spatial multi-omics, and integrative genomic approaches in neurodegeneration with a special focus on Alzheimer’s disease.
The research topic will cover themes such as -
• Single-cell transcriptomics and epigenomics in neurodegenerative diseases
• Whole genome sequencing analysis in neurodegenerative diseases
• Spatial multi-omics approaches to understand disease biology
• Integrative multi-omics and functional genomics approaches in neurodegenerative diseases
Keywords: Genetics, Epigenetics, Transcriptomics, Single-cell genomics, Neurodegeneration, Neurodegenerative dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Tauopathies, Bioinformatics
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
