Altered expression of RNA splicing proteins in Alzheimer's disease patients: evidence from two microarray studies

Background/Aims: Dysregulation of pre-mRNA splicing from an altered expression of RNA splice-regulatory proteins may act as the convergence point underlying aberrant gene expression changes in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods: Two microarray datasets from a control/AD postmortem brain cohort of 31 subjects - 9 controls and 22 AD subjects (National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database) - were used. Results: Between the two microarray studies, the expression of six splice-regulatory protein genes showed concordant changes in AD. These genes were then correlated with gene expression changes of transcripts reported to be altered in AD. Amyloid beta (A4) pre- cursor protein and tropomyosin receptor kinase B transcripts were found to correlate significantly with the same splice-regulatory proteins in the two studies. Conclusion: This study highlights a susceptibility network that can potentially link a number of susceptibility genes.