Single-cell RNA sequencing of peripheral blood reveals immune cell signatures in Alzheimer's disease

This study aimed to explore the molecular basis of peripheral immune cells and the features of adaptive immune repertoire at a single cell level. We profiled 36,849 peripheral blood mononuclear cells from AD patients with amyloid-positive status and normal controls with amyloid-negative status by 5' single-cell transcriptome and immune repertoire sequencing using the cell ranger standard analysis procedure. We revealed five immune cell subsets, CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, B cells, natural killer cells, and monocytes-macrophages cells, and disentangled the characteristic alterations of cell subset proportion and gene expression patterns in AD. Thirty-one cell type-specific key genes, comprising abundant human leukocyte antigen genes, and multiple immune-related pathways were identified by protein-protein interaction network and pathway enrichment analysis. We also found high-frequency amplification clonotypes in T cells and B cells and decreased diversity in T cells in AD. As clone amplification suggested the activation of an adaptive immune response against specific antigens, we speculated that the peripheral adaptive immune response, especially mediated by T cells, may have a role in the pathogenesis of AD. This finding may also contribute to further research regarding disease mechanism and the development of immune-related biomarkers or therapy. Overall design: Three patients with AD and two cognitively normal controls (NC) >Submitter states: The analysis of TCR-seq and BCR-seq has not yet been performed<

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