A new protein which will help scientists to understand why nerve cells die in people with Alzheimer’s disease has been designed in a University of Sussex laboratory.
In people with Alzheimer’s, amyloid-β (Aβ) proteins stick together to make amyloid fibrils that form clumps between neurons in the brain. It is believed that the build-up of these clumps causes brain cells to die, leading to the cognitive decline in patients suffering from the disease.
It is not known why this particular protein’s ‘stickiness’ causes cells to die and scientists have been unable to test whether or not the sticky clumps of Aβ proteins have different effects, compared with individual proteins that are not stuck together.
Now scientists at the University of Sussex have created a new protein that closely resembles Aβ in size and shape, but contains two different amino acids. These changes mean that the new protein does not form amyloid fibres or sticky clumps, and, unlike Aβ, is not toxic to nerve cells, according to a study published recently in the open-access journal Scientific Reports (Marshall KE, Vadukul DM, Dahal et al. A critical role for the self-assembly of amyloid-β1-42 in neurodegeneration. Sci Rep 2016; 6: 30182).
The new protein will be an essential laboratory tool for researchers working to understand the causes of, and the role Aβ plays, in Alzheimer’s disease. The scientists who designed it are now working closely with the Sussex Innovation Centre, the university’s business-incubation hub, to research commercial opportunities for the protein.