Biology subjects

Kozlenkov, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Kozlenkov, A..

9 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Massive-scale single-nucleus multi-omics identifies novel rare noncoding drivers of Parkinson's disease

Most genetic variants contributing to complex diseases reside in the noncoding genome. While common variants uncovered by genome-wide association studies often fail to explain much of the observed heritability of these diseases, rare variants often have higher effect sizes and cumulatively explain a larger portion of heritability. However, rare variants, particularly rare noncoding variants, have remained under-characterized largely due to the difficulties of accurately predicting variant functionality at scale, given that each individual carries an average of [~]10,000 rare variants. Here, we generated multi-omic data from >3.3 million nuclei sampled from five brain regions across a cohort of 80 individuals with Parkinsons disease (PD) and 21 neurologically normal control individuals with matched 30x whole-genome sequencing. We use this data to identify cell type-specific features of PD, map cell type-specific chromatin accessibility and expression quantitative trait loci, and train machine learning models to predict the effect of variants on gene regulation. We identify rare noncoding variants statistically associated with sporadic PD and extend our approaches to predict drivers of familial PD of unknown genetic origin. Our results underscore the significance of rare noncoding variants in complex diseases and provide a roadmap for applying similar approaches in other disease systems.

genetics↗

bioRxiv2026

Postnatal conversion of methylcytosine to hydroxymethylcytosine reconfigures the human neuronal epigenome

Healthy brain development requires a coordinated process of postnatal cellular maturation throughout the first two decades of life that transforms neuronal morphology, connectivity, physiology, and gene expression. The maturation and stable maintenance of neuron identity is driven, in part, by large-scale reconfiguration of the neuronal DNA methylome. Neurons have uniquely high levels of 5-hydroxy-methyl-cytosine (hmC) compared to other cell types, yet the relative contributions of 5hmC and 5-methyl-cytosine (mC) remain unknown because most experimental assays do not distinguish these marks. We measured mC and hmC using bisulfite- and oxidative-bisulfite sequencing in excitatory and inhibitory neurons, along with mRNA and histone modifications, from the prefrontal cortex of 103 human donors, ranging from 38 days to 77 years of age. Up to half of all CG dinucleotides convert from mC to hmC in a gradual process extending throughout the first decade of life, dramatically reshaping the neuronal methylome. Asymmetric enrichment of hmC on the sense strand of actively transcribed genes increases in a linear, clock-like fashion throughout the lifespan, indicating a mechanistic link between transcription and hmC. We found that sex differences in X-linked DNA methylation in the human brain are primarily driven by hmCG rather than mCG, suggesting an important role for hmC in X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) and escape gene expression. We found key changes in 5hmC at dynamic cis-regulatory elements marked by changing cell type-specific levels of active and repressive histone modifications. Collectively, our findings reveal the dynamic trajectory of hmC in human neurons across the lifespan and highlight the association of DNA hydroxymethylation with transcription, chromatin state, and sex-specific gene regulation.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Repeat expansions in C9orf72 rewire the 3D chromatin landscape in ALS

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is frequently driven by GGGGCC short tandem repeat (STR) expansions in C9orf72, yet the mechanisms by which these expansions lead to neurodegeneration remain incompletely understood. Here, we propose a novel mechanism involving higher-order chromatin architecture where C9orf72-STR expansions induce widespread, neuron-specific gains in chromatin loops that are closely linked to transcriptomic dysregulation in ALS. These ectopic loops colocalize with the genomic binding sites of C9orf72-STR RNAs and the architectural protein CTCF, supporting a model in which RNA-DNA interactions promote aberrant loop formation. Together, our findings demonstrate how C9orf72-STR expansions remodel the neuronal genome and disrupt gene expression, uncovering an RNA-driven mechanism of chromatin reorganization in C9-ALS that connects altered nuclear topology to gene dysregulation in neurodegeneration.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2026

Epidural Thin Film Implants of Polymerized Curcumin Downregulate Inflammatory Markers and Improve Functional Recovery After Spinal Cord Injury in Mice

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a notoriously intractable medical problem for which there is no neuroprotective pharmacotherapy, despite four decades of clinical trials on systemically administered small molecules that target plausible injury mechanisms. The shared failure mode of those trials is delivery: oxidative and inflammatory injury evolves locally at the lesion site over days to weeks, a timescale that far exceeds the half-life of systemically administered drugs. Furthermore, systemically administered drugs often cannot be dosed at high enough levels to achieve efficacious concentrations locally at the lesion site, without off-target effects. In this study, we show the first example of a locally implantable drug depot that exerts long-lasting activity at the lesion site. We demonstrate in vivo efficacy of a poly(pro-drug) thin film deployed locally, to address delivery problem in SCI. The films are composed of a copolyester in which curcumin, a potent natural antioxidant, is incorporated as a backbone repeat unit alongside poly(ethylene glycol) sebacate segments. The soft, thin film ([~]100 {micro}m) is employed as an epidural implant that quenches reactive oxygen species on-contact and can sustain activity for over two months, which is orders of magnitude longer than free curcumin (half-life of [~]10 min in buffer). A single epidural P50 film, placed on the exposed dura immediately after a moderate-to-severe T9 contusion in mice, produced a statistically significant improvement in Basso Mouse Scale locomotor recovery at 14 days post-injury, relative to a non-antioxidant control polymer of same architecture. The film preserved myelinated white matter, attenuated reactive gliosis (GFAP, Iba1), and produced coherent downregulation of neuroinflammatory gene-expression programs. These effects were spatially restricted to tissue rostral to the lesion, consistent with on-contact, locally confined polymer activity. Because curcumin is covalently enchained within the polymer itself, rather than blended as a payload in a carrier matrix, release is governed by backbone hydrolysis and the architecture can generalize to other phenolic bioactives, potentially establishing epidural poly(pro-drug) thin films as a mechanistically grounded, surgical platform for sustained local pharmacotherapy of CNS injury.

bioengineering↗

bioRxiv2025

Cell type-resolved long-read transcriptomics of the human cortex reveals pervasive alternative splicing and disease-relevant isoforms

Alternative splicing generates extraordinary transcriptomic complexity in the human brain, yet the full-length isoform landscape across human cortical cell types remains uncharted. Combining fluorescence-activated nuclei sorting with long- and short-read RNA sequencing, we generated isoform-resolved transcriptomes for five major lineages of the adult human prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex: GABAergic neurons, glutamatergic neurons, oligodendrocytes, astrocytes, and microglia. We cataloged over 220,000 full-length isoforms, [~]35-56% previously unannotated; novel transcripts were longer, more exon-rich, and predominantly protein-coding. Contrary to the neuron-centric view of cortical complexity, glial lineages, particularly oligodendrocytes and microglia, emerged as the most isoform-diverse populations in the cortex. Differential transcript usage and dominant isoform switching defined cell identity, with [~]59-62% of differentially regulated transcripts absent from current annotations. Critically, pathogenic variants were enriched >2-fold at novel splice boundaries within disease genes including POGZ, TARDBP, and PLP1, establishing isoform selection as a primary axis of cortical identity and exposing a layer of pathogenic variation invisible to canonical gene annotations.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2022

Divergent impacts of C9orf72 repeat expansion on neurons and glia in ALS and FTD

Neurodegenerative diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), are strongly influenced by inherited genetic variation, but environmental and epigenetic factors also play key roles in the course of these diseases. A hexanucleotide repeat expansion in the C9orf72 (C9) gene is the most common genetic cause of ALS and FTD. To determine the cellular alterations associated with the C9 repeat expansion, we performed single nucleus transcriptomics (snRNA-seq) and epigenomics (snATAC-seq) in postmortem samples of motor and frontal cortices from C9-ALS and C9-FTD donors. We found pervasive alterations of gene expression across multiple cortical cell types in C9-ALS, with the largest number of affected genes in astrocytes and excitatory neurons. Astrocytes increased expression of markers of activation and pathways associated with structural remodeling. Excitatory neurons in upper and deep layers increased expression of genes related to proteostasis, metabolism, and protein expression, and decreased expression of genes related to neuronal function. Epigenetic analyses revealed concordant changes in chromatin accessibility, histone modifications, and gene expression in specific cell types. C9-FTD patients had a distinct pattern of changes, including loss of neurons in frontal cortex and altered expression of thousands of genes in astrocytes and oligodendrocyte-lineage cells. Overall, these findings demonstrate a context-dependent molecular disruption in C9-ALS and C9-FTD, resulting in distinct effects across cell types, brain regions, and disease phenotypes. One Sentence SummaryC9orf72-associated ALS and FTD showed a distinct pattern of transcriptome changes, with the largest number of affected genes in C9-ALS in astrocytes and excitatory neurons in upper and deep layers.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Acetylated Chromatin Domains Link Chromosomal Organization to Cell- and Circuit-level Dysfunction in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

To explore modular organization of chromosomes in schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD), we applied population-scale correlational structuring of 739 histone H3-lysine 27 acetylation and H3-lysine 4 trimethylation profiles, generated from the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of 568 cases and controls. Neuronal histone acetylomes and methylomes assembled as thousands of cis-regulatory domains (CRDs), revealing fine-grained, kilo-to megabase scale chromatin organization at higher resolution but firmly integrated into Hi-C chromosomal conformations. Large clusters of domains that were hyperacetylated in disease shared spatial positioning within the nucleus, predominantly regulating PFC projection neuron function and excitatory neurotransmission. Hypoacetylated domains were linked to inhibitory interneuron- and myelination-relevant genes. Chromosomal modular architecture is affected in SCZ and BD, with hyperacetylated domains showing unexpectedly strong convergences defined by cell type, nuclear topography, genetic risk, and active chromatin state across a wide developmental window.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2020

Evolution of regulatory signatures in primate cortical neurons at cell type resolution

The human cerebral cortex contains many cell types that likely underwent independent functional changes during evolution. However, cell type-specific regulatory landscapes in the cortex remain largely unexplored. Here we report epigenomic and transcriptomic analyses of the two main cortical neuronal subtypes, glutamatergic projection neurons and GABAergic interneurons, in human, chimpanzee and rhesus macaque. Using genome-wide profiling of the H3K27ac histone modification, we identify neuron-subtype-specific regulatory elements that previously went undetected in bulk brain tissue samples. Human-specific regulatory changes are uncovered in multiple genes, including those associated with language, autism spectrum disorder and drug addiction. We observe preferential evolutionary divergence in neuron-subtype-specific regulatory elements and show that a substantial fraction of pan-neuronal regulatory elements undergo subtype-specific evolutionary changes. This study sheds light on the interplay between regulatory evolution and cell-type-dependent gene expression programs, and provides a resource for further exploration of human brain evolution and function. SIGNIFICANCEThe cerebral cortex of the human brain is a highly complex, heterogeneous tissue that contains many cell types which are exquisitely regulated at the level of gene expression by non-coding regulatory elements, presumably, in a cell-type-dependent manner. However, assessing the regulatory elements in individual cell types is technically challenging, and therefore, most of the previous studies on gene regulation were performed with bulk brain tissue. Here we analyze two major types of neurons isolated from the cerebral cortex of humans, chimpanzees and rhesus macaques, and report complex patterns of cell-type-specific evolution of the regulatory elements in numerous genes. Many genes with evolving regulation are implicated in language abilities as well as psychiatric disorders.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Neuronal and glial 3D chromatin architecture illustrates cellular etiology of brain disorders

Cellular heterogeneity in the human brain obscures the identification of robust cellular regulatory networks. Here we integrated genome-wide chromosome conformation in purified neurons and glia with transcriptomic and enhancer profiles to build the gene regulatory landscape of two major cell classes in the human brain. Within glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons, we were able to link enhancers to their cognate genes via neuronal chromatin interaction profiles. These cell-type-specific regulatory landscapes were then leveraged to gain insight into the cellular etiology of several brain disorders. We found that Alzheimers disease (AD)-associated epigenetic dysregulation was linked to neurons and oligodendrocytes, whereas genetic risk factors for AD highlighted microglia as a central cell type, suggesting that different cell types may confer risk to the disease via different genetic mechanisms. Moreover, neuronal subtype-specific annotation of genetic risk factors for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder identified shared (parvalbumin-expressing interneurons) and distinct cellular etiology (upper layer neurons for bipolar and deeper layer projection neurons for schizophrenia) between these two closely related psychiatric illnesses. Collectively, these findings shed new light on cell-type-specific gene regulatory networks in brain disorders.

neuroscience↗