amyloid plaques tagged posts

Cholesterol manufactured in the brain appears to play a key role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, new research indicates.

Scientists from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and their collaborators found that cholesterol produced by astrocytes is required for controlling the production of amyloid beta, a sticky protein that builds up in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s. The protein accumulates into insoluble plaques that are a hallmark of the disease. Many efforts have targeted these plaques in the hope that removing or preventing them could treat or prevent Alzheimer’s.

The new findings offer important insights into how and why the plaques for...

Amyloid plaques are protein deposits that collect between brain cells, hindering function and eventually leading to neuronal death. They are considered a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and the focus of multiple investigations designed to reduce or prevent their formation, including the nationwide A4 study.

But amyloid deposits may also occur in the retina of the eye, often in patients clinically diagnosed with AD, suggesting similar pathologies in both organs...

Retro-inverso peptide inhibitor nanoparticles as potent inhibitors of aggregation of the Alzheimer’s Aβ peptide

New Alzheimer’s Rx could be delivered as nasal spray. A novel treatment could block the development of Alzheimer’s disease using microscopic droplets of fat, nanoliposomes, coated in protein fragments to carry drugs into the brain. This treatment approach, which is used to target drugs to cancer cells, has been successfully applied to Alzheimer’s disease for the first time, restoring memory loss in mice. The method stops amyloid protein accumulating into plaques, even at low concentrations.

Mice that were genetically altered to develop Alzheimer’s disease were injected with the nanoliposomes for three weeks...

Brain cells from a mouse cortex that didn’t receive the gene therapy. The amyloid plaques are shown in green, and the glial cells, which surround the plaques, are shown in red (microglia) and magenta (astrocytes). Image 2 shows a mouse cortex that received the gene therapy, and so had fewer amyloid plaques. Credit: Imperial College London

Researchers have prevented development of Alzheimer’s disease in mice by using a modified virus to deliver a specific gene into the brain. The early-stage findings, by scientists from Imperial College London, open avenues for potential new treatments for the disease. Previous studies by the same team suggest this gene, called PGC1 – alpha, may prevent the formation of a protein called amyloid-beta peptide in cells in the lab...