Why does Alzheimer's disease kill so many brain cells?

This week, a major paper on Alzheimer's disease was published in the top academic journal Nature, providing an explanation for a central problem in Alzheimer's disease: why the brains of Alzheimer's patients have neural cells die?

The researchers pointed out that this discovery not only provides a new window for understanding the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease, but also points out a new way for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disease that often threatens the elderly, causing cognitive decline, memory loss, abnormal behavior and other symptoms, and it will get worse

In the new study, a team of researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital measured the mutations that develop in the brain's nerve cells to suggest a cause of brain cell death in Alzheimer's patients.

During normal cell growth, DNA inevitably makes some mistakes

But in this study, the scientists found that, affected by Alzheimer's disease, the somatic mutations accumulated in nerve cells in the brains of patients were abnormal in both speed and type

The analysis showed that compared with age-matched controls without neurological disease, nerve cells affected by Alzheimer's disease had more changes in their DNA, mostly in what are known as single-nucleotide variants (single-nucleotide variants).

▲ Schematic diagram of the experimental process for measuring the somatic mutation of brain neurons (Image source: Reference [1])

The researchers went on to trace the source of these mutations

Judging from the results of the accumulation of mutations in nerve cells, the researchers' preliminary analysis found that these additional changes can affect the genes encoded by DNA, causing gene inactivation and imbalance of intracellular protein homeostasis, ultimately impairing neuronal function

▲This study proposes a model for the role of somatic mutations in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (Image source: Reference [1])

Note: The original text has been deleted

References:

[1] Michael B.

[2] Genetic changes differed, increased in people with Alzheimer's disease.