Enzyme able to untangle protein aggregates associated with Alzheimer’s
pharmafile | June 29, 2017 | News story | Research and Development | Alzheimer's, Parkinson's
There are currently no effective treatments for neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. This is presently a pressing issue and one that will become more urgent as populations worldwide continue to live longer lives.
In Europe, 16% of the population is over the age of 65 and this figure is expected to grow to 25% by 2030. This means that research into age-related neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, to discover an effective treatment or cure is needed, as societies currently already struggle with the cost of supporting an ageing population.
The latest research emerging from the University of South Florida could provide a clue to help develop treatments in the future. The research found that a naturally occurring human enzyme, CyP40, may be able to unbend and disaggregate tangles that occur in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
A common factor in many neurodegenerative diseases are the misfolded proteins that become ‘tangled’ to form insoluble clumps called amyloid. The proteins are thought to be related to the cognitive decline of those in whom they form.
The researchers discovered that CyP40 was able to reduce the amount of aggregated tau in a mouse study, after genetically modifying the mice to develop a similar condition to Alzheimer’s disease. When the mice were then treated with a CyP40-based gene therapy, mice were found to improve cognitively and the loss of brain cells was reduced.
CyP40 functions by attaching to the amino acid proline, which is able to alter that the shape of amino acid chains. By bending the protein, the action promotes the stacking of adjacent regions of the protein – thereby encouraging amyloid formations. CyP40 was found to be able to encourage the reverse of this, by unbending the chains and allowing the proteins to untangle.
“The finding that Cyp40 can untangle clumps of tau and alpha-synuclein suggests that it, or one of the more than 40 other human proteins with similar activity, may have a role to play in treating neurodegenerative disease,” lead researcher, Laura Blair, said of the findings.
The limitation with the research is that it was only produced in mouse studies, where their condition was a close approximation of Alzheimer’s disease. The next stage will be to further develop the understanding of how the enzyme works, in order to potentially develop a therapeutic strategy that could be applicable to humans.
Ben Hargreaves
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