Methods and Substances for the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease

<strong>Technology</strong><br>

The invention provides a new adjuvant free vaccination strategy for the treatment or prev ention of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which is known to be the most common form of dementia. <br> The inventors developed retrovirus-like particles who present the N-terminus (1-15) of the human amyloidal beta 42-peptide on their surface. The present-ed epitope causes a strong and sustained B- but no T-cell response after single immunization in mice and can therefore be used as immunization agent. Furthermore, the vaccination showed a significant decrease of amy-loidal plaque load and soluble and insoluble cerebral Aß40/42 concentration in APP23 mouse model for AD. <br> First experiments in an Alzheimer’s disease mouse model proofed that immu-nization with the new developed particles induces a high anti-Aß-immu-noglobulin serum titer and reduces the number as well as the spreading of amyloid beta deposits in the mouse brain. </p> <p><strong>Benefits</strong><br> <ul> <li>Active immunization-therapy – might be most effective in early stages of the disease</li> <li>Particles free of nucleic acid encoding for viral proteins (no genet-ically modified organisms or vectors)</li> <li>Enveloped retrovirus-like particles with an Aß-antigen can be pro-duced in mammalian cells</li> </ul> <p><strong>IP Rights</strong><br> PCT application filed in July 2008 claiming the priority of the EP application filed in July 2007<br> National applications in US, EP <br> <strong><br> Origin</strong><br> The retrovirus-like particle was developed at the Paul Ehrlich Institute.</p>

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