Ontological Analysis of Brain Proteostasis Highlights the Sex-Dependent Trajectory of ApoE Isoform-Specific Regulation

Denos, A.; Jones, B.; Moran, N.; Smith, E.; Brown, K.; Earls, N.; Burlette, R.; Garrard, C.; Clark, E.; Coleman, E.; Elison, J.; Wells, J.; Matute, J.; Brown, J.; Sorensen, M.; Poulson, M.; Paymard, N.; Nielsen, C.; Tolley, D.; Vickers, E.; Daouahi, W.; Price, J. C.

doi:10.64898/2026.06.29.735293

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bioRxiv · 10.64898/2026.06.29.735293

Ontological Analysis of Brain Proteostasis Highlights the Sex-Dependent Trajectory of ApoE Isoform-Specific Regulation

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Abstract

Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) is the strongest genetic predictor of Alzheimers disease (AD) risk, with ApoE4 increasing and ApoE2 decreasing risk relative to ApoE3. Using a global LC-MS proteomic approach, we integrated protein abundance and kinetics in Human-APOE knock-in mice for young (3-month) and aged (18-month) cohorts to quantify the changes in steady-state proteostasis. By mapping 6,052 identified proteins and 3,986 associated turnover rates into ontological groups, we observed that vesicle trafficking and mitochondrial dysregulation occur as early as 3 months in ApoE4 mice accompanied by hyperactive metabolism that eventually reduces with age. In contrast, young and old ApoE2 mice retain similar signatures to ApoE3 mice in metabolic, mitochondrial, cellular regulation, and membrane trafficking ontologies. We found that females had more isoform-induced ontological changes relative to ApoE3, providing insight into sex-dependent vulnerabilities. Our global proteomic approach for ApoE proteostasis crucially unifies independent literature observations while providing turnover kinetics to uncover the underlying mechanism behind abundance changes. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD079261. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=189 SRC="FIGDIR/small/735293v1_ufig2.gif" ALT="Figure 1000"> View larger version (45K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@28ebfforg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@9dc6f2org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@704577org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@e0b0e2_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=139 SRC="FIGDIR/small/735293v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1001"> View larger version (48K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@17d0474org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@af771borg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1b49f67org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@14d3aa2_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

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Denos, A., Jones, B., Moran, N., Smith, E., Brown, K., Earls, N., Burlette, R., Garrard, C., Clark, E., Coleman, E., Elison, J., Wells, J., Matute, J., Brown, J., Sorensen, M., Poulson, M., Paymard, N., Nielsen, C., Tolley, D., Vickers, E., Daouahi, W., Price, J. C.. 2026-06-30. Ontological Analysis of Brain Proteostasis Highlights the Sex-Dependent Trajectory of ApoE Isoform-Specific Regulation. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.06.29.735293

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