The progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD) can be arrested
by rescuing the Golgi apparatus, the part of the cell involved in packaging and
sorting protein cargo.
The study was carried out by researchers Yanzhuang Wang,
Gunjan Joshi, and colleagues at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In order
to uncover the mechanism damaging the Golgi, they used a transgenic mouse and
tissue culture models of AD to look at what was happening inside the brain.
Alzheimers Disease
Alzheimer''s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting memory and thinking and making the person increasingly dependent on others.
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AD progresses in a rising storm of cellular activity inside the brain, as deposits of the toxic protein, amyloid-beta, overwhelm neurons. An apparent side effect of accumulating amyloid-beta is the Golgi fragmentation by activating a cell cycle kinase, cdk5. This Golgi function can be rescued by blocking cdk5 or shielding its downstream target protein in the Golgi, GRASP65. Rescuing the Golgi reduced amyloid beta accumulation significantly, apparently by re-opening a normal protein degradation pathway for the amyloid precursor protein (APP).
The study has paved a way for drugs hoping to slow AD
progression.
Source: Medindia
Source: Medindia
Diseases Related to Old Age
Ageing is referred to the accumulation of changes that brings a person closer to death.
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 Risk Factors for Alzheimers DiseaseCognitively normal adults exhibiting atrophy of their temporal lobe or damage to blood vessels in the brain are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. | Advertisement
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Smokers are at Risk of Alzheimer's Disease
People who smoke are at a greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.
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