Perhaps the biggest discovery in the Alzheimer research world last year was the identification of a mutation in APP that significantly decreases its cleavage by
β-secretase, leading to 40% less production of amyloidogenic peptides
in vitro. The researchers found the mutation (A673T) in the
APP gene protects against Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline in the elderly without Alzheimer’s disease.
Future drugs that can
recreate this Aβ-reducing effect “should perhaps be given not only to
people at risk of Alzheimer’s but to all elderly people,” says Kári Stefánsson, senior investigator of the study, which came out of Iceland and appears online in Nature.
4 comments:
That would be tantamount to gene therapy. I don't see this becoming clinically useful in our lifetimes. :-(
Hey JD!
Would you agree with me that this is the most significant discovery in the field in 2012? If not, what do you think is? Since this is your area of resarch, I would defer to your opinion on this.
B
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22622580
Apolipoprotein E controls cerebrovascular integrity via cyclophilin A.
First insight into how apoE maintains BBB integrity.
I disagree completely with JD about this requiring a gene therapy approach. A drug that inhibits beta-secretase would have the same effect on production of amyloidogenic peptides, and such drugs have been under development for some time. These could be hugely important in slowing and preventing development of AD.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22122681
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