Resolving human neuronal herpesvirus reactivation via petabase-scale association studies
Mounting evidence implicates herpesvirus reactivation in the etiology of Alzheimer's disease, yet we lack a refined molecular characterization of pathogenesis in neurodegeneration. Here, we mine over 10 petabytes of human sequencing data for viral transcripts, identifying recurrent herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) reactivation in healthy but not pathological post-mortem human brain tissue. Integrative single-nucleus analyses resolve direct evidence of HSV-1 expression in RORB+ glutamatergic neurons, implicating viral reactivation in a neuronal population progressively lost during dementia.
Authors
- Artem Babaian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4315-6262)
- Caleb A. Lareau (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4179-4807)
- Jacob C. Gutierrez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4581-3534)
- Yifan Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9054-3089)
- Ryan S. Dhindsa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8965-0813)
Institutions
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (US)
- Baylor College of Medicine (US)
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Neurological Research Institute (US)
- Texas Children's Hospital (US)
- Cellular Research (United States) (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
- Published
- 2026-05-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.04.29.721769
- Primary Topic
- Herpesvirus Infections and Treatments
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00