Three proteins and neural network in Alzheimer's
(disrupt signaling between brain cells)
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Though the cause of Alzheimer’s disease still is unknown, recent studies have implicated three proteins strongly in its onset. New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Gladstone Institutes and the Baylor College of Medicine indicates that interactions between those three proteins might lead to brain dysfunction and AD in a mouse model of the disease.
“There has been growing interest in ‘network dysfunction’ as a cause of AD,” said Erik Roberson, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Departments of Neurology and Neurobiology at UAB and lead author of the study. “Rather than thinking about individual cells dying, we are thinking about abnormalities in the way groups of neurons fire together as a cause of cognitive impairment in AD. “Currently, we only have a few drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, and those do not have dramatic effects in most patients,” said Roberson. “It is exciting to me that our results might point to a new direction for developing drugs to treat this dreaded disease.”
The three proteins are amyloid beta (Aβ), tau, and Fyn. Aβ collects into aggregates in the brains of AD patients. These Aβ plaques are a pathologic hallmark of AD and smaller complexes of Aβ are considered a primary cause of memory dysfunction in the disease. Fyn is an enzyme that regulates other proteins by adding small phosphate chemical groups to them. Fyn cooperates with Aβ to increase cognitive deficits in mice. The protein tau makes up part of the “skeleton” of the cell and aggregates into tangles in the brains of AD patients. Read more: newswise.com
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