Understanding Alzheimer’s disease: Animal research points to new direction for therapy

Saint Louis University study suggests protein can´t cross blood brain barrier

ST. LOUIS — Alzheimer´s disease may be caused by a problem transporting a certain protein across the blood brain barrier and out of the brain, according to new Saint Louis University research published in the October issue of Neuroscience.

The findings are important, says William A. Banks, M.D., a Saint Louis University professor and the lead author of the article, because they give us a new approach for treating Alzheimer´s disease.

“It´s going to be a big piece to solving the Alzheimer´s disease puzzle,” says Dr. Banks, a professor of geriatrics in the department of internal medicine and professor of pharmacological science at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. “If one could reverse the transport deficit problem, the system should be able to pump the protein out again. The impaired transporter problem may be an easier therapeutic target.”

Normally, amyloid beta protein, the protein thought to cause Alzheimer´s disease, leaves the brain and crosses the blood brain barrier, which is a wall of blood vessels that feed the brain and regulate the entry and exit of brain chemicals. But in persons with Alzheimer´s disease, amyloid beta protein becomes blocked in the brain and can´t make it across the blood brain barrier. The more amyloid beta protein accumulates, the tougher it is for the blood brain barrier to move it out, and the more disabled a person becomes.

Because the transport deficit causes the amyloid beta protein to accumulate, scientists should focus on finding ways to destroy the protein with enzymes or pushing the protein across the blood brain barrier and out of the brain. Dr. Banks says fixing the system that transports amyloid beta protein across the blood brain barrier is “a viable therapeutic target.”

“We need to find therapies to bring the transportation system back on line to pump the amyloid beta protein out of the brain,” says Dr. Banks, who also is a staff physician at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Louis.

The research analyzed the accumulation of amyloid beta protein in a mouse model of Alzheimer´s disease.

Media Contact

Nancy Solomon EurekAlert!

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors