Sarah Marzi

It has been and continues to be an excellent collaboration and many thanks go to the brilliant team: Maria Tsalenchuk, Kyle Farmer, Sandra Castro, Abigail Scheirer, Yuqian Ye, Tim Greenamyre and Emily Rocha 🙏

@ukdri.ac.uk @kingsioppn.bsky.social @imperialbrains.bsky.social

Histone acetylation in the motor cortex of rats exposed to rotenone highlights disruption of synaptic pathways. This includes consistent upregulation of Homer1 and its binding partners.

Conversely, we see disruption of synaptic genes in the motor cortex. These results suggest reasons why neurons in the nigra may be particularly vulnerable in Parkinson's disease and why we see impairments in synaptic plasticity in the motor cortex.

Staining images showing increased activation of microglia in the substantia nigra of rats exposed to rotenone.

In this work, led by Maria Tsalenchuk, we show that chronic exposure to the pesticide rotenone leads to different histone acetylation patterns in the substantia nigra and motor cortex. In the nigra we see striking upregulation of immune pathways.

Unique nigral and cortical pathways implicated by epigenomic and transcriptional analyses in rotenone Parkinson’s model - npj Parkinson's Disease npj Parkinson's Disease - Unique nigral and cortical pathways implicated by epigenomic and transcriptional analyses in rotenone Parkinson’s model

☣️🐀 Pesticide exposure in rats changes epigenetic signatures in different brain regions!

Latest paper from our fruitful collaboration with Emily Rocha and Tim Greenamyre, linking epigenetic signatures of exposure to toxicants to Parkinson's disease:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cells in key brain regions involved in Parkinson’s retain a ‘memory’ of pesticide exposure that disrupts gene expression🧬

Research by @sj-marzi.bsky.social & colleagues unlocks understanding of the mechanisms behind the role of pesticide exposure in Parkinson’s👉 buff.ly/1F16eUB

Jonas Neher, Sarah Marzi, Susanne Kooistra and Renzo Mancuso at the microglia epigenetics symposium for the Glia conference 2025 in Marseille.

Good times discussing all things #epigenetics and #microglia at our symposium with this awesome group: @jonasneher.bsky.social, @kooistrasm.bsky.social, @mancusorenzo.bsky.social. And enjoying the sun and science at #glia2025 in Marseille, while hoping that fires can be contained.

Really excited to speak at the Canadian Conference on Epigenetics. Join us in beautiful Banff in November 👇🏻

Thanks again for inviting me 🙏🏻

Excited to share that a chapter of my PhD has just been published in Nature Communications!

We profiled the transcriptomic and chromatin landscapes of microglia expressing the different APOE variants, which were xenografted into the brains of an Alzheimer's disease (AD) mouse model 🧠🧬

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The APOE gene is a major genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's, but different versions of the protein confer strikingly different risk profiles.

New research led by ‪@sj-marzi.bsky.social‬ offers insight into how the different versions of APOE affect microglia👉https://buff.ly/pyFh7jy

Very interesting indeed, thanks for sharing 🙏🏻

Huge thanks and congrats to the wonderful lead author @kittybmurphy.bsky.social and all fantastic team members here and from the De Strooper and @mancusorenzo.bsky.social labs. So grateful to the @alzassociation.bsky.social and all funders for supporting us.

Importantly, some of the protective effects of APOE2 on immune functioning seem to be driven through increased DNA binding of vitamin D receptor, potentially opening up new avenues to explore therapeutic intervention.

We studied human microglia harbouring the different APOE variants, xenografted into an Alzheimer's mouse model. Our results suggest that functions including cellular motility, inflammatory immune response and phagocytosis are directly affected by the APOE isoforms.

How does APOE change your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease? At least partially by changing the function of immune cells in your brain 🧠🧬

New paper out in @natcomms.nature.com today: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@ukdri.ac.uk @kingsioppn.bsky.social @imperialbrains.bsky.social

So lucky to have the best lab. Will miss @kittybmurphy.bsky.social so much 😢❤️ but excited to see her future successes in ancient genome research!

Trying to get cell type specific insights from bulk brain epigenetic studies? Check out our new method CHAS for cell type deconvolution in brain studies of histone acetylation. Reanalysis of bulk data from >300 samples revealed novel cell type specific epigenetic associations across brain diseases👇🏻

Really nice work from the @nottalexi.bsky.social lab using functional genomics to show that genetic risk for multiple neurodegenerative diseases is linked to disease-specific microglial pathways. Congrats Aydan, @mangiruben.bsky.social and Alexi 👏🏻✨

Thanks, Vardhman 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Many thanks to the excellent team on this, including @kittybmurphy.bsky.social , Yuqian Ye, Maria Tsalenchuk and @nottalexi.bsky.social 🙏🏻🙏🏻

We show that there are widespread epigenetic differences in oligodendrocytes associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Led by the brilliant @kittybmurphy.bsky.social we developed CHAS, featuring two complimentary algorithms to estimate cell type proportions in bulk histone acetylation data and infer cell type specific signatures associated with different brain conditions.

CHAS infers cell type-specific signatures in bulk brain histone acetylation studies of neurological and psychiatric disorders Murphy et al. develop CHAS, a computational tool that uncovers cell type-specific patterns in bulk tissue histone acetylation data. Applying CHAS to brain disorders reveals distinct cell type targets ...

We are so happy to share our latest paper "CHAS infers cell type-specific signatures in bulk brain acetylation studies of neurological and psychiatric disorders".

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

@ukdri.ac.uk @kingsioppn.bsky.social @imperialbrains.bsky.social

Wonderful evening with @liddelowsa.bsky.social following his visit to @imperialbrains.bsky.social @ukdri.ac.uk 🧠

Microglia heterogeneity, modeling and cell-state annotation in development and neurodegeneration - Nature Neuroscience Microglia have key roles in CNS development and neurodegeneration. Here, the authors provide an overview of microglia heterogeneity, cell-state annotation and model systems.

I am so excited to share our review on microglial heterogeneity @natureneuro.bsky.social! It was a fantastic effort by the lab, led by @c9laura72.bsky.social and Alma Mohebiany. We provide a critical view on the plethora of microglial cell states in health and disease. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

PhD student Paulina Urbanaviciute with her poster at ADPD 2025

My FOMO of missing #ADPD2025 is at least partially alleviated by knowing that our team is super well represented by our brilliant PhD student Paulina. Check out her awesome poster on cell type specific histone acetylation in #Alzheimer's disease brain and say hi (poster 160) 🧠🧬

Guidelines on CUT&Tag to study gene regulation New study compares CUT&Tag to the existing standard of CHIP-seq, serving as guidelines for studying histone modification.

New study by IoPPN researcher Dr Sarah Marzi in @naturecomms.bsky.social offers a new set of guidelines for designing epigenetic studies, based on a new technique, CUT&Tag, which analyse a type of gene regulation mechanism #neuroskyence #AcademicSky

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/guideli...

Want to know how CUT&Tag works compared to ChIP-seq for studying epigenetic changes in cells and tissues?🧬

@sj-marzi.bsky.social systematically compares the new method to the existing standard, providing useful guidelines for others planning epigenetic studies 👉https://buff.ly/KFSGkzr

Thanks, Vardhman 🙏🏻

Thank you, Christine 🙏🏻 What a journey 😅