Dr. Pacheco-Quinto, and other BRInj researchers, publish articles clarifying the mechanisms associated with amyloid β clearance in AD
October 01, 2014
Two recent articles published by Dr. Pacheco-Quinto and several collaborators, including Dr. Sambamurti from the Medical University of South Carolina, and Drs Christopher and Elizabeth Eckman from BRInj, shed light on important mechanistic aspects of Aβ clearance in AD.
The first article, published in PLoS One, describes the unexpected dose-response relationship between Aβ40 and Aβ42 production in response to DAPT, a common γ-secretase inhibitor (GSI), believed to inhibit Aβ production. Their results suggest that DAPT actually increases Aβ40 and Aβ42 at low concentration, but inhibits them at high levels. This study increases our understanding of GSIs as therapeutics for AD and provides valuable insight for future therapeutic development.
The second article, published in Neurobiology of Disease, examines Aβ levels in the brain, plasma and lymph nodes of a transgenic model of AD. They report for the first time that Aβ is present in the cervical and axillary lymph nodes of AD transgenic mice and that Aβ levels in lymph nodes increase over time. Their results strongly suggest that Aβ peptides in lymph nodes are derived from the brain.
