Proteomic Approaches to Advance Understanding of Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a complicated multifactorial neurodegenerative disorder that is becoming increasingly prevalent in aging societies. Currently no disease-modifying treatment exists for AD, and easily accessible biomarkers that reflect the full spectrum of pathological brain changes observed in AD are not available. We have recently applied unbiased mass spectrometry-based proteomic and systems biology approaches to characterize the landscape of AD brain pathological changes with a goal of uncovering new potential therapeutic targets for the disease. We have also applied multiple proteomic approaches to the study of AD cerebrospinal fluid and plasma to uncover biomarkers that may reflect these pathological brain changes. Integration of brain and biofluid proteomics is a promising approach to advance therapeutic target and actionable biomarker development for AD.