Systems Biology Techniques to Understand Disease Mechanisms and Develop Biomarker Panels

The Mayo Clinic Mitochondrial Neurobiology and Therapeutics Lab applies systems biology techniques to understand the disease mechanisms and to develop biomarker panels.

Dr. Trushina's research team is exploring the application of multiple systems biology approaches — including proteomics, transcriptomics, epigenetics and metabolomics — to establish signatures of disease conditions in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, multiple sclerosis, metabolic disorders and aging. The signatures established by the lab will be useful for improving the understanding of disease mechanisms and for diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of therapeutic efficacy.

Dr. Trushina's team worked with the Mayo Clinic Metabolomics Resource Core to demonstrate that application of metabolomics could detect early changes associated with altered energy utilization, mitochondrial function and energetic stress in blood, cerebrospinal fluid and fibroblasts from patients with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease, and in multiple mouse models of Alzheimer's disease.