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Alzheimer's Transmission Pathway Discovered

Posted by timothy on from the when-it's-all-greek-to-you dept.

smitty777 writes "Two separate studies by the Taub Institute and Harvard have discovered the pathway used by Alzheimer's Disease to spread through the brain. The studies indicate it's not a virus, but a distorted protein called Tau which moves from cell to cell. Further, the discovery 'may now offer scientists a way to move forward and develop a way to block tau's spread in Alzheimer's patients, said Karen Duff, a researcher at Columbia's Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's disease and co-author of one study published Wednesday in the journal PLoS One. "It's enlightening for us because it now provides a whole other area for potential therapeutic impact," said Duff. "It's possible that you can identify the disease and intervene (with potential tau-blocking drugs) before the dementia actually sets in."'"

46 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Does this mean? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does this suggest that it may be hazardous to produce soylent green from Alzheimer's casualties, in the same way that consumption of tissue from animals affected by prion disorders is considered unwise?

    1. Re:Does this mean? by SJHillman · · Score: 5, Funny

      Perhaps this is what makes soylent green so delicious? If so, then I consider it an acceptable risk.

    2. Re:Does this mean? by meglon · · Score: 5, Informative

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002355/

      For some fun and tasty reading.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    3. Re:Does this mean? by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I've never heard of anything to suggest that Alzheimers can be "caught." A seminar I saw a few years ago on tau suggested that in order to form these aggregates of tau, you need to have a mutated form of it: normal tau does not start clumping up and killing brain cells (not entirely sure I'm remembering that correctly). It's only transmissible between cells which have the same mutant form of the protein. I don't know, maybe it's possible that material from alzheimers patients could make the disease appear sooner in people with the mutant form who would probably develop symptoms later.

      The prion protein that is at the heart of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, on the other hand, that appears to be the normal protein misfolding. The diseased proteins seem to convince normal proteins to misfold.

      So, as I understand it, the hypothesis is that if you were to inject material from an alzheimer's patient's brain into your brain, for example, the alzheimer's Tau would not cause your tau to start clumping up and would not cause the disease. If you injected brain material from someone suffering from spongiform encephalitis though, the proteins in your brain WOULD be coaxed to start clumping up, causing the disease.

      Let's not test those hypotheses though...

    4. Re:Does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I've never heard of anything to suggest that Alzheimers can be "caught." A seminar I saw a few years ago on tau suggested that in order to form these aggregates of tau, you need to have a mutated form of it: normal tau does not start clumping up and killing brain cells (not entirely sure I'm remembering that correctly).

      Uh-oh! You better get tested for Tau proteins right away...

  2. Awesome by chinton · · Score: 5, Informative

    After watching my dad ravaged body (by bone cancer) and mind (by Alzheimer's), anything that may some day lead to prevention is great news.

    1. Re:Awesome by quark101 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Alzheimer's is a terrible disease, not just for the person who has it, but especially so for those who are close to the afflicted. The slow, degenerative, wasting of the mind is horrifying to watch, as the person that was once bright and lively gets turned into a shell of their former self. Not able to grasp what's going on around them, or who they're talking to, the person can easily become terrified, lost, and confused, made all the more painful by the fact that they don't know who their children are or why they're here.

      I know that identifying the underlying cause and developing a treatment are often worlds apart, but I'm glad nonetheless to see this advancement, if merely for the fact that one day others won't have to experience the pain I did as I watched people I love succumb to Alzheimer's.

    2. Re:Awesome by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't have anything insightful to add, but I feel compelled to say fuck you, cancer and double fuck you, Alzheimer's. Thank you for your attention.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    3. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't have anything insightful to add, but I feel compelled to say fuck you, cancer and double fuck you, Alzheimer's. Thank you for your attention.

      Heh...yeah. Every single person in my family for the past 3 generations, with only two exceptions, both maternal and paternal has died in their early 70's or before from cancer. The exceptions: one of my cousins committed suicide, and one of my grandfathers survived into his 80's only to succumb to Alzheimer's. I got to watch a truly brilliant man, who I've always considered far more intelligent than I, become unable to understand the most simple concepts, followed by slowly becoming more and more unresponsive. Eventually, he wouldn't react at all to anybody visiting him, he would just sit there in his chair, or lie in a bed, or wherever it was that anyone led him to be. I can't think of a worst way to go.

      My parents are still alive, but my father has already been diagnosed with prostate cancer (he's in his early 60's), and my mother pretty much refuses to go to the doctor for anything, because she figures it's only a matter of time before they find something, and she'd rather not know about it since she has already decided she would refuse to go through chemo anyway.

      In other words, my genes suck, and as a result I feel strongly compelled to join you. Fuck Cancer and Fuck Alzheimer's..

    4. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Triple fuck growing up

    5. Re:Awesome by DrgnDancer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't mean to pry, but why on Earth would your mother refuse chemo? These days most cancers (not all, by any means, but most) are extremely treatable and survivable if caught early. It's unpleasant for a few months, but with a few exception you'll mostly always survive and be fine. It's not like it was 30 years ago where you were looking at 50-50 odds at best and the treatment was worse than the disease. I personally know literally half a dozen cancer survivors just among my family and people that I am close enough to to know their medical history. Most are as fit and active as ever now.

      --
      I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
    6. Re:Awesome by thomst · · Score: 5, Interesting

      quark101 opined:

      Alzheimer's is a terrible disease, not just for the person who has it, but especially so for those who are close to the afflicted. The slow, degenerative, wasting of the mind is horrifying to watch, as the person that was once bright and lively gets turned into a shell of their former self. Not able to grasp what's going on around them, or who they're talking to, the person can easily become terrified, lost, and confused, made all the more painful by the fact that they don't know who their children are or why they're here.

      I know that identifying the underlying cause and developing a treatment are often worlds apart, but I'm glad nonetheless to see this advancement, if merely for the fact that one day others won't have to experience the pain I did as I watched people I love succumb to Alzheimer's.

      Amen to that.

      Last August, my mother was diagnosed with "mild to moderate" Alzheimer's. I had been certain for some time prior to then that she had the disease. She would sometimes repeat as if it had just occurred to her a story she'd told me just minutes earlier, she'd get stuck trying to recall the names of people she'd known for years (such as her 22-year-old granddaughter), and was only strongly confident about the details of events long past. In November, she was examined by two doctors at the Copper Ridge Institute (which is affiliated with Johns Hopkins), which specializes in Alzheimer's research and treatment. She knew the President of the U.S. was black, but couldn't recall his name, thought my youngest sister was 40 (she turned 53 in December), and couldn't remember which day of the week it was (it was Friday).

      I call her at least once a week, and she seems to deteriorate more every time I speak with her - and yet, she's still fundamentally the same warm, sweet, vibrant woman she's been as long as I've known her. Just ... a little confused. What I fear is that, over time, she will lose all the memories that make her that person. I've known several people with advanced Alzheimer's, and watched them become progressively emptier shells of themselves, until they're little more than slack-jawed zombies, incapable of caring for themselves, or communicating with others - and I don't want to see that happen to my Mom.

      But I know it will, because none of these new discoveries will make it out of the lab in time to save her from the ravages of this loathsome disease. And that breaks my heart.

      --
      Check out my novel.
    7. Re:Awesome by sconeu · · Score: 2

      Yep. When my grandmother died, after a long bout with Alzheimer's, my reaction was, "That's not her. That's a thing that *used to be* her."

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    8. Re:Awesome by TheLink · · Score: 2

      McDonald's supersize meals can work as a preventative measure. Take one daily and you are unlikely to die of cancer or get Alzheimers. ;)

      p.s. you might die a bit earlier though.

      --
    9. Re:Awesome by jimicus · · Score: 2

      Same thing happened to my gran.

      It's like being forced to watch an extremely bad car crash in slow motion - so slow it takes place over the course of years rather than seconds. You know what's happening from quite early on in the process, you've got a pretty good idea of how it's going to pan out in the end, you can tell from the pace at which things progress that the end may be some time away and you're powerless to stop it.

    10. Re:Awesome by jimicus · · Score: 2

      It's not as simple as that.

      It's much easier to successfully treat cancer in its early stages. Which is great if you're "lucky" enough to be struck down with a type that tends to be easily detectable at early stages. Testicular and breast cancer fall into this category - it's pretty damn obvious if you've got a lump on one of your testicles.

      Cancers that start deep inside the body - things like lung, liver, pancreas cancer - often don't show much in the way of symptoms until you're at a pretty advanced stage. By which time you'd be well advised to get your affairs in order.

      Source: No particular expertise, but my wife works in radiotherapy and treats people with cancer all day long.

  3. I, for one.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I, for one, welcome our.. I, for one, welcome..

  4. Tau by Ihmhi · · Score: 4, Funny

    Xenoflesh in the human brain? Clearly the apothecaries have failed in purging this scum from our fellow men. The only solution is Exterminatus. The Emperor Protects!

    --
    Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
    1. Re:Tau by Moheeheeko · · Score: 2

      We told you this "Gearter Good" was a lie! This heresy has brought dementia to those who stray from the Emporers will!

  5. Great news by ackthpt · · Score: 2

    I'm certain Sir Pterry is following this with considerable interest.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  6. Notice where the study was done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It was done at a University by students who probably weren't paid. It wasn't done by a pharmaceutical lab. Remember that when the drug companies try to justify charging your parents $2000 for a one month supply of Alzheimer medication.

    They spend more on advertising then R&D.

    1. Re:Notice where the study was done by Sockatume · · Score: 4, Insightful

      While I agree that the pharmaceutical businesses is a complete disaster area in terms of cures-per-dollar, you can't point at one publicly funded study and use it as evidence of that fact. It's spectacularly irrational.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    2. Re:Notice where the study was done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      While I agree that the pharmaceutical businesses is a complete disaster area in terms of cures-per-dollar, you can't point at one publicly funded study and use it as evidence of that fact. It's spectacularly irrational.

      Uh, yes you can. Not on its own, but in conjunction with a larger body of studies that all demonstrate this point. It's not a smoking gun, it's just part of a larger body of evidence. But go ahead and call it "spectacularly" irrational if you want, I guess.

    3. Re:Notice where the study was done by Sockatume · · Score: 2

      If you're pointing at "a larger body of studies" you're not pointing at one study any more, are you?

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    4. Re:Notice where the study was done by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We shouldn't trust pharmaceuticals, that's for sure. Between the questionably ethical testing in 3rd world countries, the highway robbery, the lobbying to the medical industry to push fairly worthless products, and, oh yeah, their old-fashioned bribery (I mean lobbying) of elected officials to keep their racket going, they are evil. I got laid off from Pfizer two days after Christmas years ago, so I'm not on their side.

      Still, I have to point out that basic biological research is a different beast from true medical research. Clinical trials in people are generally very expensive compared to basic research. They take much longer too. Mass producing drugs is not cheap to begin with, and the standards have to be very high for pharmecuticals. 70% purity of a drug you're going to inject into rats to test the effect for basic research like this is acceptable often, but that's hideously impure for something you're going to be putting into people.

      The biggest disadvantage pharmecuticals have is liability. No one sues you if one of your lab rats or plates of cells die, this is not the case if someone taking your medicine dies. You need to hire an army of lawyers.

      They do have huge costs, and the risks are much higher. Again, they should be scrutinized, but I don't think it's fair to imply that just because a university lab has a result on Alzheimers means that drugs should be cheap.

    5. Re:Notice where the study was done by nahdude812 · · Score: 2

      They spend more on advertising then [sic] R&D.

      I hate this statement as a statement against the pharmaceutical industry.

      Marketing 101 is all about Return on Investment. Marketing is an investment from which you expect a return greater than the investment. Very few large companies spend more on marketing than they get back out of it. This is just as true for pharmaceuticals as it is any other industry. That is the POINT of marketing expenditure. Maybe some companies have marketing departments which suck at their job. But that's not a problem with marketing in general, it's a problem with those particular companies.

      So all that this statement says about anything is that our society pays too much attention to advertisements. A company that sends all their money into R&D at the expense of marketing will probably produce some pretty useful drugs that no doctors or patients ever hear about and so aren't used, so they don't sell as much, so they don't have as much money to invest into R&D.

      --
      Slay a dragon... over lunch!
    6. Re:Notice where the study was done by Defenestrar · · Score: 2

      You can't get approval from the FDA without showing some very specific pharmacology data. You need to show you know exactly what's going on at the lowest level or there's not a chance in bureaucracy that CBER or CDER is going to approve your new drug application. Theses days even the small molecule generics have to at least make a facsimile of the big boy's mechanism description and pay for someone on staff qualified to answer questions about it.

  7. Finally, some good news... by NIN1385 · · Score: 3

    I was getting very depressed with all the bad news about the government and the ignorant shit they are doing. This is some refreshing news to end the week.

    Hopefully I will see a cure for this disease in my lifetime.

    --

    If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
  8. Known to be prion related by jfessler · · Score: 2

    I haven't RTFA but "The studies indicate it's not a virus"??? Didn't we already know that?

    1. Re:Known to be prion related by jd · · Score: 5, Informative

      We've known about tau protein's involvement in Alzheimers for decades. Specifically, we've known that the protein forms tangles which crush brain cells. That part is beyond old news. What seems to happen is that the tau protein "unzips" from its proper location, resulting in brain cells registering that there is insufficient tau protein in locations where it should be, in turn resulting in a loop that will kill everything in the area.

      What is NOT known is why it unzips. My father's work in the late 80s, early 90s, showed that aluminum toxicity can cause the unzipping process. Later studies have shown that this is not the only pathway, but that there is usually something encased in the tau protein.

      This has led to me speculating that this may have once been a feature, not a bug, that in early life this might have been an environmental detox mechanism (bind toxic chemicals in the area up in protein which is then ejected). This is based on the fact that the brain is unique amongst cells utilizing tau protein in that it has nowhere to eject bound-up toxins and that you don't see these kinds of tangles forming in other contexts where tau protein exists. It would also explain why Alzheimer's looks like it could be virally caused as it would end up with the same look and feel at the neurological level. On the one hand, I've read the papers, I've been involved in the research, I understand the science extremely well. On the other hand, neuroscience is a jealous discipline - even biochemists have a very tough time getting a hearing and I've far less standing than that in the biological sciences - and thus I do not expect this speculation to get looked at. (And, no, this speculation isn't Wikipedia-based. The original thoughts were written up when Gopher was the protocol of choice and really is based on hard, raw data collected in the field. I was, after all, involved in collecting it.) Nonetheless, this finding convinces me that I will prove to have been far closer to the actual mechanism than most of the recognized theories to date. (Yes I'm an old, arrogant, snobbish fart. Now fetch me a lawn so you can gerroff it!)

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  9. In America you can be cured of most diseases by countertrolling · · Score: 2

    Provided of course, only if you can afford it.

    --
    For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    1. Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, tell that to Steve Jobs.

    2. Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by crmarvin42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That was his own fault. He decided to try homeopathic voodoo instead of sound, scientifically-validated methods to treat his cancer initially. That resulted in an early diagnosis (with high probablity of complete remission) turning into a late treatment (with far less favorable odds). The key with most agressive cancers is early diagnosis AND early treatment.

      Cases like this are where homeopathy changes from being mostly harmless, and therefore not worthy of much attention, and become outright dangerous.

      --
      Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
    3. Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by tragedy · · Score: 2

      Well, he wasn't cured, but he lasted a remarkably long time, and managed to get a liver transplant that was very questionable given that he was dying of pancreatic cancer. Usually they don't give organ transplants to people with such a bad prognosis. Getting the liver may have extended his life by about 2 years. It very well could have extended a different patient's life by twenty. He managed to get the liver by spending a lot of money to fly around and visit a lot of different doctors and get on a lot of different waiting lists. Whether he did anything even more questionable than just gaming the system is unknown.

    4. Re:In America you can be cured of most diseases by tragedy · · Score: 2

      Jobs might have been well-educated and intelligent, but he was fundamentally a salesperson. A very high-powered one. They tend to be crazy. It's usually a fairly specific kind of crazy, but crazy nonetheless. Basically, their success leads them to believe that they can accomplish anything just by force of will and personality. These people are heavily into all that self-actualization motivational stuff. They also really _believe_ in it due to their own success. Confirmation bias leads them to believe that they will always succeed where others have failed.

  10. Folding@Home by blind+biker · · Score: 5, Informative

    I talked with the researchers involved with Folding@Home, and they told me that indeed, processing power is at least partly used to research Tau protein misfolding.

    So, if you want to do something good for your future (since there is a good chance you'll be hit by Alzheimer's if you live long enough), I suggest contributing your CPU and graphics cards cycles to Folding@Home.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  11. Re:Correlation to human greed by u38cg · · Score: 2

    Actually, we don't. For all the scaremongering at the time, there is no real evidence tying BSE transmission through animal derived feedstuffs to vCJD.

    --
    [FUCK BETA]
  12. PLoS One Link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Below is a link for the PLoS One article...

    http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0031302;jsessionid=4EA9D1FCBCCF4E5C7B1B9A5FE3266C3E

  13. Nice work by medv4380 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nice that they've isolated it down to a single protein causing the problem. From what I gathered from the article the protein is supposed to provide the insulation between neural networks as you get older. Shouldn't be long then before they have it isolated down to the gene sequence that causes the protein to go rogue in the first place. Assuming that it's genetic and not some other kind of Prion.

  14. Sure, it all starts well and good... by mj1856 · · Score: 4, Funny

    but next thing you know you're in a helicopter, shooting monkeys off the Golden Gate Bridge with a machine gun.

    1. Re:Sure, it all starts well and good... by goldspider · · Score: 2

      Or as I call it, "Saturday".

      --
      "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
  15. Do you remember... by alex67500 · · Score: 2

    Does anybody remember Alzheimer's first name?

    No? That's how it starts...

  16. In other words, Alzhimers is a prion disease by MickLinux · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In other words, Alzhimer's is a prion disease, much like Kuru. Also, I suspect, much like Multiple Sclerosis.

    The difference is that Kuru is a disease gotten by eating human flesh, and even tigers that eat it will be able to get it from humans.

    Scrappie comes from sheep. Mad cow comes from cows. Even deer have their own prion disease. If I had to guess what MS comes from, I'd guess pig meat.

    So what's Alzhimer's come from? I suspect it comes from sausage. More specifically, from rats. Anyhow, that's where I'd start looking.

    --
    Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
    1. Re:In other words, Alzhimers is a prion disease by Nadaka · · Score: 2

      You have a lot of unsubstantiated suspicions.

      The thing about prions is that they are not just a transmissible disease. They can spontaneously be generated by environmental factors deforming an existing protein.

      They also do not say that this malformed tau protein is capable of corrupting normal protein, which would be required before it could be a transmissible prion.

  17. Re:Correlation to human greed by medv4380 · · Score: 2

    Given that Alzheimer's was diagnosed over a hundred years ago I'd doubt that anything that we've been doing recently would actually be the source of the problem. Alzheimer's has probably been around for a very long time just was identified as old people going senile. It could easily be a Prion as you're implying with comparing it to Mad Cow disease, and it could be that something we are doing is spreading it. However, it could easily be just a genetic defect that's causing the protein to be folded incorrectly, and wasn't considered an issue until the human lifespan hit a point that the defect kicks in. A genetic defect is at least fixable. I don't know of any real treatments for Prions other then things that sound "promising", but have yet to prove themselves.

  18. tau and prions are related by clydoz · · Score: 2

    The relationship of Tau to prions (cause of mad cow disease) is discussed here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3015202/?tool=pubmed "Tau, prions and A: the triad of neurodegeneration."