New Hope for Alzheimer's treatment
The genetic answer to the Alzheimer's riddle?
NanoNewsNet based on materials from the University of Kentucky:
A Genetic Answer to the Alzheimer's Riddle?What if we could pinpoint the hereditary cause of Alzheimer's disease and intervene in human genetics to reduce the risk of developing the disease?
Perhaps, thanks to scientists from the University of Kentucky (UK), we have come very close to this goal. Researchers at the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging UK have just completed new work in the field of genetics of Alzheimer's disease and described its results in detail in an article in The Journal of Neuroscience (Malik et al., CD33 Alzheimer's Risk-Altering Polymorphism, CD33 Expression, and Exon 2 Splicing).
New data show that, as in the case of high cholesterol, a certain risk of developing Alzheimer's disease is inherited, and studies conducted on families and twins confirm that about 70 percent of the total risk of getting Alzheimer's disease is due to genetics.
Scientists have identified several variations of DNA sequences, each of which affects this risk. Having investigated the mechanism of action of one of these variations in their work, they came to the conclusion that the "protective" genetic variation near the CD33 gene largely correlates with how the CD33 matrix RNA is assembled in the human brain. In addition, it turned out that the CD33 form without a critical functional domain, in turn, correlates with a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. The CD33 gene is believed to inhibit the excretion of beta-amyloid, a characteristic feature of this neurodegenerative disease.
The results obtained by UK scientists show that inhibition of the CD33 gene can reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease. The CD33 gene is already a target of a drug for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (Mylotarg, the active substance is monoclonal antibodies specific to the CD33–VM protein). Now scientists have reason to believe that drugs that suppress the expression of the CD33 gene may have the potential to reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. But before this assumption can be tested in clinical trials, additional studies need to be conducted.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru22.08.2013