Reducing risk of Alzheimer’s
Super gene may hold the answer
A super gene that may lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by as much as 70 per cent has been identified by US researchers, who say it could take treatment in a whole new direction.
The team from Columbia University says the protective variant, which appears to allow toxic forms of amyloid out of the brain and through the blood-brain barrier, supports evidence that the brain’s blood vessels play a large role in AD.
More than 472,000 Australians live with dementia and AD.
Columbia University said in a statement that the protective variant identified occurs in a gene that makes fibronectin, a component of the blood-brain barrier, which is a lining surrounding the brain’s blood vessels that controls the movement of substances in and out of the brain.
Study co-lead Caghan Kizil said AD may start with amyloid deposits in the brain, but the disease manifestations are the result of changes that happen after the deposits appear.
Associate Professor Kizil is from the Taub Institute at Columbia University and the research was published in April in the journal Acta Neuropathologica.
The team identified that fibronectin, which is usually found in the blood-brain barrier in tiny amounts, is in larger amounts in people who do have AD.
“Our findings suggest … that we may be able to develop new types of therapies that mimic the gene’s protective effect to prevent or treat the disease,” he said. “It’s a classic case of too much of a good thing,” Prof Kizil says. “It made us think that excess fibronectin could be preventing the clearance of amyloid deposits from the brain.”
A world-renowned expert in Alzheimer’s and neurodegenerative diseases research, Professor Colin Masters from The Florey in Melbourne, says the research is promising, but cautions it is still “years away” from delivering new drugs.
While he was not involved in this research, he has studied the role of amyloid and its role in AD for more than 40 years.
Prof Masters said this research was on the right pathway. “Anything that targets amyloid is very interesting and worth exploring.”
Professor Christopher Rowe, the director of the Australian Dementia Network at the University of Melbourne and Florey Institute agreed it was exciting to find new gene variants that reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia in Australia.
Prof Rowe said although amyloid antibody treatment for AD may soon be available in Australia, the benefit is slowing of disease progression and this is largely restricted to those with very mild symptoms of AD. “More treatments and better tests for very early detection of AD are urgently needed,” he said.