United States: As per the latest research, the glial cells, particularly oligodendrocytes, produce amyloid beta, the protein that is famously associated with Alzheimer’s disease, and hence challenge the long-established belief that neurons are the only contributors.
Moreover, the discovery has opened several gates for more therapies aiming to prevent plaque formation in the brain.
More about the news
The amyloid beta protein, which is produced naturally inside the brain, plays an important role in the disease.
It thus accumulates inside the brain of the patient into insoluble clumps, which are responsible for the formation of plaques between neurons in the brain, thus affecting them and making them dysfunctional.
As per the researchers of the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences, apart from neurons, special kinds of glial cells inside the brain also produce amyloid beta, as neurosciencenews.com reported.
This breakthrough discovery would open up several options for future therapies.
With no cures for Alzheimer’s disease at present, several therapeutic approaches are there just to lower the progression of the disease. However, they cannot help reverse or stop the disease.
What more have the experts revealed?
According to Klaus-Armin Nave, Director at the MPI for Multidisciplinary Sciences, “Until now, neurons were thought to be the main producers of amyloid beta and have been the main target for new drugs,” as neurosciencenews.com reported.
Moreover, as Andrew Octavian Sasmita, one of the first authors of the study now published in Nature Neuroscience and a former PhD student in Nave’s team, explained, “One of the tasks of oligodendrocytes is to form myelin – an insulating layer – and wrap it around the nerve fibers to speed up signal transmission.”
In a previous study, the Göttingen researchers discovered already that defective myelin of oligodendrocytes deteriorates Alzheimer’s disease.
AS Sasmita said, “We have now shown that although neurons are the main producers of amyloid beta, oligodendrocytes also produce a significant amount of the protein which is incorporated into plaques.”