Publications by authors named "Nho K"

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the leading dementia among the elderly with complex origins. Despite extensive investigation into the AD-associated protein-coding genes, the involvement of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) and posttranscriptional modification (PTM) in AD pathogenesis remains unclear. Here, we comprehensively characterized the landscape of ncRNAs and PTM events in 1460 samples across six brain regions sourced from the Mount Sinai/JJ Peters VA Medical Center Brain Bank Study and Mayo cohorts, encompassing 33,321 long ncRNAs, 92,897 enhancer RNAs, 53,763 alternative polyadenylation events, and 900,221 A-to-I RNA editing events.

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The overall goal of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) is to optimize and validate biomarkers for clinical trials while sharing all data and biofluid samples with the global scientific community. ADNI has been instrumental in standardizing and validating amyloid beta (Aβ) and tau positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. ADNI data were used for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the Fujirebio and Roche Elecsys cerebrospinal fluid diagnostic tests.

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Single cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) technologies provide unprecedented resolution representing transcriptomics at the level of single cell. One of the biggest challenges in scRNA-seq data analysis is the cell type annotation, which is usually inferred by cell separation approaches. In-silico algorithms that accurately identify individual cell types in ongoing single-cell sequencing studies are crucial for unlocking cellular heterogeneity and understanding the biological basis of diseases.

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Introduction: The influence of genetic variation on tau protein aggregation, a key factor in Alzheimer's disease (AD), remains not fully understood. We aimed to identify novel genes associated with brain tau deposition using pathway-based candidate gene association analysis in a Korean cohort.

Methods: We analyzed data for 146 older adults from the well-established Korean AD continuum cohort (Korean Brain Aging Study for the Early Diagnosis and Prediction of Alzheimer's Disease; KBASE).

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  • * The study aimed to explore how genetic variants connected to neurotransmitter systems and brain atrophy relate to apathy in individuals with MCI and AD.
  • * Findings revealed a significant association between apathy and the presence of an ε4 allele along with specific genetic markers related to dopamine, suggesting potential new avenues for treatment and clinical trials targeting apathy in AD.
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Nicotinamide mononucleotide adenylyl transferases 2 (NMNAT2) is a crucial nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD)-synthesizing enzyme essential for neuronal health. In the Religious Orders Study/Memory and Aging Project (ROSMAP), human brain levels of NMNAT2 mRNA positively correlated with cognitive capabilities in older adults. NMNAT2 mRNA abundance is significantly reduced following various insults or proteinopathies.

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Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a highly heritable brain dementia, along with substantial failure of cognitive function. Large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have led to a set of SNPs significantly associated with AD and related traits. GWAS hits usually emerge as clusters where a lead SNP with the highest significance is surrounded by other less significant neighboring SNPs.

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  • The study addresses the lack of ethnic diversity in Alzheimer's research, focusing on Asian populations, particularly Koreans, to enhance understanding of the disease.
  • RNA sequencing was conducted on blood samples to analyze gene expression and its relation to amyloid beta (Aβ) deposition, leading to the identification of 265 dysregulated genes associated with Aβ.
  • Findings suggest that certain genes linked to Aβ deposition are enriched in natural killer cell-mediated immunity, highlighting potential new avenues for diagnostics and therapies in Alzheimer's disease.
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  • Limited research has examined how cardiovascular risk and amyloid levels influence cognitive decline in East Asians, specifically in a study involving 526 participants from the Korean Brain Aging Study.
  • Results showed that cognitively normal individuals without amyloid (Aβ-) but with high cardiovascular risk scores had significantly lower cognitive performance than their low-risk counterparts.
  • Ultimately, while managing vascular risk is important for early cognitive preservation in Aβ- individuals, amyloid pathology was found to be the main factor driving cognitive decline in both cognitively normal and mild cognitive impairment groups, regardless of vascular risk status.
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Introduction: The genetic pathways that influence longitudinal heterogeneous changes in Alzheimer's disease (AD) may provide insight into disease mechanisms and potential therapeutic targets.

Methods: Longitudinal endophenotypes from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) representing amyloid, tau, neurodegeneration (A/T/N), and cognition were selected. Genome-wide association analysis was performed using a linear mixed model (LMM) approach, followed by gene and pathway enrichment with significant and functionally relevant SNPs.

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  • Subcortical brain structures play a crucial role in various developmental and psychiatric disorders, and a study analyzed brain volumes in 74,898 individuals, identifying 254 genetic loci linked to these volumes, which accounted for up to 35% of variation.
  • The research included exploring gene expression in specific neural cell types, focusing on genes involved in intracellular signaling and processes related to brain aging.
  • The findings suggest that certain genetic variants not only influence brain volume but also have potential causal links to conditions like Parkinson’s disease and ADHD, highlighting the genetic basis for risks associated with neuropsychiatric disorders.
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Although air pollution has been classified as a risk factor for heart disease, the underlying mechanisms remain nebulous. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of diesel particulate matter (DPM) exposure on cardiomyocytes and identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs) induced by DPM. DPM treatment decreased H9C2 cell viability and increased cytotoxicity.

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  • Scientists studied the genes related to Alzheimer's disease and found over 80 gene locations that might be linked to this disease.
  • They looked at data from nearly 8,000 people who had their brains examined after they died to better understand different brain changes connected to Alzheimer's.
  • In their research, they discovered 8 important new gene locations, including some that were previously unknown, which helps us learn more about how genetics can affect the risk of Alzheimer's disease.
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Introduction: The exponential growth of genomic datasets necessitates advanced analytical tools to effectively identify genetic loci from large-scale high throughput sequencing data. This study presents Deep-Block, a multi-stage deep learning framework that incorporates biological knowledge into its AI architecture to identify genetic regions as significantly associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The framework employs a three-stage approach: (1) genome segmentation based on linkage disequilibrium (LD) patterns, (2) selection of relevant LD blocks using sparse attention mechanisms, and (3) application of TabNet and Random Forest algorithms to quantify single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) feature importance, thereby identifying genetic factors contributing to AD risk.

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  • Subcortical brain structures play a crucial role in various disorders, and a study analyzed the genetic basis of brain volumes in nearly 75,000 individuals of European ancestry, revealing 254 loci linked to these volumes.
  • The research identified significant gene expression in neural cells, relating to brain aging and signaling, and found that polygenic scores could predict brain volumes across different ancestries.
  • The study highlights genetic connections between brain volumes and conditions like Parkinson's disease and ADHD, suggesting specific gene expression patterns could be involved in neuropsychiatric disorders.
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  • The study investigates the genetic factors contributing to Alzheimer's disease by analyzing tau deposition through a genome-wide association study involving 3,046 participants.
  • It identifies the CYP1B1-RMDN2 locus as significantly linked to tau levels, with the variant rs2113389 explaining 4.3% of tau variation, while also correlating with cognitive decline.
  • Findings suggest a connection between CYP1B1 expression and tau deposition, offering potential new avenues for Alzheimer's treatment and understanding its genetic basis.
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  • - MicroRNAs, which are short non-coding RNAs, play a key role in protein regulation and are being explored as potential biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease (AD).
  • - The study analyzed plasma samples from 847 participants in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) and discovered specific microRNA signatures that correlate with AD diagnosis and the progression from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to AD.
  • - Findings suggest that evaluating plasma microRNA levels, alongside neuropsychological tests, can enhance the prediction accuracy for MCI to AD conversion, potentially helping to identify at-risk individuals and reduce the need for costly diagnostic procedures.
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Introduction: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in gene expression regulation and Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis.

Methods: We investigated the association between baseline plasma miRNAs and central AD biomarkers from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI; N = 803): amyloid, tau, and neurodegeneration (A/T/N). Differentially expressed miRNAs and their targets were identified, followed by pathway enrichment analysis.

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  • Scientists found a protein called NPTX2 that can help identify Alzheimer's disease.
  • *They studied tiny molecules called miRNAs and discovered that one called miR-133b is linked to Alzheimer's and brain health.
  • *The research shows that miR-133b might help the NPTX2 protein work better, which could be important for understanding Alzheimer's.
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  • Alzheimer's disease (AD) begins years before noticeable symptoms, making early detection crucial, as individuals with high amyloid levels can still be cognitively normal, indicating that amyloid alone isn't a sufficient risk marker.
  • A new risk score was created by combining amyloid imaging and genetic data to assess risk for cognitive decline in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), yielding better correlation with cognitive scores than traditional amyloid measures.
  • This innovative risk score showed strong effectiveness in identifying different risk levels among subgroups of MCI patients, potentially enhancing early AD risk assessment and benefiting clinical trials.
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Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder influenced by various factors, including liver function, which may impact the clearance of amyloid-β (Aβ) in the brain. This study aimed to explore how the apolipoprotein E () ε4 allele affects the relationship of liver function markers with AD pathology and cognition.

Methods: We analyzed data from two independent cohorts, including 732 participants from the Hallym University Medical Center and 483 from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, each group consisting of individuals with and without the ε4 allele.

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Inflammation is an important factor in Alzheimer's disease (AD). An NMR measurement in plasma, glycoprotein acetyls (GlycA), captures the overall level of protein production and glycosylation implicated in systemic inflammation. With its additional advantage of reducing biological variability, GlycA might be useful in monitoring the relationship between peripheral inflammation and brain changes relevant to AD.

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Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is characterized by its complex and heterogeneous etiology and gradual progression, leading to high drug failure rates in late-stage clinical trials. In order to better stratify individuals at risk for AD and discern potential therapeutic targets we employed a novel procedure utilizing cell-based co-regulated gene networks and polygenic risk scores (cbPRSs). After defining genetic subtypes using extremes of cbPRS distributions, we evaluated correlations of the genetic subtypes with previously defined AD subtypes defined on the basis of domain-specific cognitive functioning and neuroimaging biomarkers.

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To uncover molecular changes underlying blood-brain-barrier dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease, we performed single nucleus RNA sequencing in 24 Alzheimer's disease and control brains and focused on vascular and astrocyte clusters as main cell types of blood-brain-barrier gliovascular-unit. The majority of the vascular transcriptional changes were in pericytes. Of the vascular molecular targets predicted to interact with astrocytic ligands, SMAD3, upregulated in Alzheimer's disease pericytes, has the highest number of ligands including VEGFA, downregulated in Alzheimer's disease astrocytes.

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Background: There are various molecular hypotheses regarding Alzheimer's disease (AD) like amyloid deposition, tau propagation, neuroinflammation, and synaptic dysfunction. However, detailed molecular mechanism underlying AD remains elusive. In addition, genetic contribution of these molecular hypothesis is not yet established despite the high heritability of AD.

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