EPIGENETICS IN ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: THE COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEMS BIOLOGY PARADIGM FOR UNDERSTANDING THE EPIGENETIC-BASED MARKERS AND DRUGS

Debjani Roy

Department of Biophysics, Bose Institute, Acharya J.C. Bose Centenary Building, Kolkata, India

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent neurodegenerative disease throughout the world. Most of the clinical symptoms of AD appear at a very later stage. Therefore, the identification of disease markers is essential which can help proper detection of AD at an earlier stage and slow down its progression. Studies have implicated that epigenetics play an important role in several neurodegenerative diseases including AD. Non-coding RNAs such as miRNAs and lncRNAs play an important role in epigenetic pathways. In this talk, I will review the computational approaches that we have developed to identify epigenetic markers i.e. miRNAs and lncRNAs from human interactome. I will also put emphasize on several epigenetic repositioning drugs and their targets from human interactome that we have proposed using our new algorithm. These studies may present the insights into the understanding of AD from the epigenetic perspective and provide the opportunities for developing new therapeutic strategies for AD.