Sammendrag
Millions of people are currently suffering from the neurodegenerative illness, Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This disease is currently untreatable and difficult to diagnose. Oxidative stress has been shown to impact AD and the role of epigenetics in AD is emerging. To determine the epigenetic landscape in AD and if the DNA glycosylase OGG1 has any influence, we studied post-translational histone modifications in an AD mouse model with and without OGG1 deficiency. We found alterations of global histone acetylation and methylation mark levels in the cortex and in the hippocampus of mice. Our results show that acetylation marks are more affected in the hippocampus than cortex in AD. In AD, we found acetylation modifications affecting the hippocampus throughout aging, with methylation modifications impacting earlier stages. With OGG1 deficiency in AD, we found an altered epigenetic landscape in the cortex and hippocampus. Understanding the epigenetic landscape in AD with give us a greater understanding for the AD pathology as well as a possible avenue for finding potential biomarkers for diagnosis and novel drug targets.