By Jillian Shaw | Science Writer
Neurodegenerative Diseases of the central nervous system progressively rob patients of their memory, motor function, and ability to perform daily tasks. Advances in genetics and animal models across the field, but specifically through the Alzheimer’s Genome Project initiated by Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, are beginning to unearth an unexpected role for the immune system in disease onset and progression. Recent work into the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease has identified a compelling role for immune signaling pathways to play a role in the disease. This lays the ground work for immune-related therapeutic intervention.
Unraveling the genome in order to predict whether someone will get Alzheimer’s disease has been an area of focus for the neurodegenerative disease community. Two back-to-back research papers published in Nature Genetics analyzed the largest-ever genomic data sets to date in order to point to new genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. Not only that, but the researchers uncovered a role for how these genes contribute to Alzheimer’s disease – in some cases through the immune system. 94,437 individuals who had been diagnosed with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease participated in a genome-wide association study that identified variants in five new genes that put people at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. The data also confirmed 20 other genes that had been previously implicated in Alzheimer’s disease.
Another huge advance from these papers is the identification of the groups of genes that work together to influence risk and disease progression. Many of the genes identified play a role in the formation of beta-amyloid plaques, tau accumulation, and the immune system. The study independently identified ADAM10 and ACE as risk variants for Alzheimer’s disease providing much need replicated support for the findings. By themselves, each of these newly discovered variants contribute only a small amount of increased risk. That being said, this study advances the biological pathways that are involved in the onset and progression of the disease.
This new research paper is ground breaking for those interested in finding a way to predict who will get Alzheimer’s disease later in life. The goal of this research is to understand how the complex biological, environmental, and lifestyle factors interact to contribute to Alzheimer’s.
A “News and Views” piece published in Nature Reviews Neurology by Cure Alzheimer’s Fund researcher Lars Bertram and Chair of the Research Leadership Group of Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, Rudy Tanzi, outlined the major findings of this ground-breaking work.
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