New Israeli Breakthrough In Understanding Onset Of Alzheimer’s

Israeli researchers have made a breakthrough in understanding the mechanism that causes the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. 

The Amyloid beta protein is believed to be one of the primary causes of Alzheimer’s, as it causes what is called amyloid plaque to build up in the brains of people with the disease. The plaque forms in the spaces between the nerve cells, which disrupts cell function in memory.

Now, researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa believe that this toxic protein accumulates in the brain because of a disruption in the body’s mechanism to clear proteins, known as the ubiquitin-proteasome system.

To test this, the team created a model of human neurons in order to examine the role of the ubiquitin system in the development of the disease. 

Their results found that damage to the ubiquitin system leads to the accumulation of toxic proteins even in healthy tissue, mimicking symptoms of Alzheimer’s. 

They then engineered an RNA molecule – which contains instructions for cellular behavior – to treat the damaged parts of the ubiquitin system, which alleviated Alzheimer’s symptoms in the experimental model. 

The researchers believe that this platform that they have developed could be used to screen drugs for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. They say that this platform will help reduce animal experiments in the development of new Alzheimer’s therapies, because of the use of a model of human neurons. 

The full study was published in the academic journal Nature Communications.