New EMIF-AD proteome and methylome studies

14. October 2025

Advancing the frontier of minimally invasive diagnostics, our ongoing collaborative efforts within the EMIF-AD consortium have produced three compelling publications all published in Alzheimers & Dementia, the journal of the American Alzheimer’s Association, focusing on molecular biomarkers. The first paper by Vromen et al. (2025) details how cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) proteomic associations of different APOE genotypes reveal distinct protective and risk mechanisms. The analysis showed that the rare APOE ε2 variant may confer protection through improved neuronal plasticity, while ε4 carriers exhibit increased blood-brain barrier dysfunction. The second paper, by Koetsier et al. (2024), covers the development of a highly robust, blood-based multivariate DNA methylation risk score designed to predict cognitive impairment and dementia. Complementing this, the third study, by Smith et al. (2024), maps out specific blood DNA methylomic signatures that are tightly associated with established CSF biomarkers of AD. LIGA was instrumental in all three of these epigenetic and proteomic advancements; specifically, Drs. V. Dobricic, J. Homann, and L. Bertram contributed the EMIF-AD DNAm and GWAS data and performed some of the computational analyses underlying these studies.