# Identification of novel methylation biomarkers in Alzheimer's Disease

> **NIH NIH P20** · UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA LAS VEGAS · 2022 · $304,549

## Abstract

The initial research proposal plan was to test tools on data available through collaboration with another COBRE project lead working on schizophrenia. This is no longer possible due 
to termination of the schizophrenia project. The EAB fully supports the proposed shift to testing on Alzheimer’s Disease samples. 
Aim 1: DNA 5-methylcytosine(5mC) methylation detection on Nanopore sequencing. 
Aim 2: Detect methylation-variant biomarkers in AD via genome-wide dissection. 
 
Schizophrenia is a severe common mental disease. Both genetic and environmental factors contribute to 
the schizophrenia development. DNA methylations, as the dynamic consequence of the interplay between 
genome and environment and further link with phenotypes, are investigated in schizophrenia patients using 
traditional methylation profiling methods. Many methylation patterns are discovered to deepen our 
understanding of the molecular etiology of schizophrenia. However, traditional whole-genome methylation 
profiling methods cannot reliably measure all-site methylation level, and leave a lot of methylation patterns 
uncovered, while novel methylation and genetic variants are needed urgently for schizophrenia. To 
overcome these limitations, this project focuses on novel biomarker discovery from genome-wide 
methylation/variant dissection in schizophrenia samples using Nanopore sequencing. To do this, (1) 
methylation detection on Nanopore sequencing will be substantially improved using novel self-supervised 
learning where unlabeled Nanopore data will substantially improve the learning process. The methylation 
detection error in the downstream analysis of schizophrenia is thus minimized; (2) 10 pairs of schizophrenia 
samples and control will be sequenced via Nanopore sequencing, and whole-genome millions of 
methylations will be detected using improved methylation detection. Since millions of methylation sites are 
reliably measured, novel methylation differentiation in schizophrenia will be explored; (3) Both wholegenome 
genetic variants and methylation are detected and investigated simultaneously to discover more 
methylation-variant patterns for schizophrenia. The completion of these aims will provide novel methylation 
and methylation-variant biomarkers for deepening our understanding of schizophrenia.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10570825
- **Project number:** 5P20GM121325-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA LAS VEGAS
- **Principal Investigator:** Qian Liu
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $304,549
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-06-01 → 2025-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10570825

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10570825, Identification of novel methylation biomarkers in Alzheimer's Disease (5P20GM121325-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10570825. Licensed CC0.

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