遗传资源与进化国家重点实验室知识库

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease with increasing incidence across the world and no cure atthepresenttime.AnidealanimalmodelwouldfacilitatetheunderstandingofthepathogenesisofADanddiscoveryofpotentialtherapeutic targets. The Chinese tree shrew (Tupaia belangeri chinensis) has a closer genetic affinity to primates relativeto rodents, and can attain ages of 8 years or older, which represents another advantage for the study of neurodegenerativediseases such as AD compared to primates. Here, we analyzed 131 AD-related genes in the Chinese tree shrew brain tissuesbased on protein sequence identity, positive selection, mRNA, and protein expression by comparing with those of human,rhesus monkey, and mouse. In particular, we focused on the A? and neurofibrillary tangles formation pathways, which arecrucial to AD pathogenesis. The Chinese tree shrew had a generally higher sequence identity with human than that of mouseversus human for the AD pathway genes. There was no apparent selection on the tree shrew lineage for the AD-relatedgenes. Moreover, expression pattern of the A? and neurofibrillary tangle formation pathway genes in tree shrew brain tissuesresembled that of human brain tissues, with a similar aging-dependent effect. Our results provided an essential genetic basisfor future AD research using the tree shrew as a viable model.