The Landscape of Sex- and APOE Genotype-Specific Transcriptional Changes in Alzheimer's Disease at the Single Cell Level

Abstract

Alzheimers disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, with approximately two-thirds of AD patients are females. Basic and clinical research studies show evidence supporting sex-specific differences contributing to the complexity of AD. There is also strong evidence supporting sex-specific interaction between the primary genetic risk factor of AD, APOE4 and AD-associated neurodegenerative processes. Recent studies by us and others have identified sex and/or APOE4 specific differentially expressed genes in AD based on the bulk tissue RNA-sequencing data of postmortem human brain samples in AD. However, there lacks a comprehensive investigation of the interplay between sex and APOE genotypes at the single cell level. In the current study, we systematically explore sex and APOE genotype differences in single cell transcriptomics in AD. Our work provides a comprehensive overview of sex and APOE genotype-specific transcriptomic changes across 54 high-resolution cell types in AD and highlights individual genes and brain cell types that show significant differences between sexes and APOE genotypes. This study lays the groundwork for exploring the complex molecular mechanisms of AD and will inform the development of effective sex- and APOE-stratified interventions for AD.