Alzheimer’s: study of cells to counteract it

A recent US study managed to discover one new therapy to combat some forms of Dementia. In short, it turned out how to move the brain cells damaged from a sick to a healthy state. A valid treatment trajectory for diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia pathologies.

The core of the discovery is the microglia. They are cells that stabilize the brain by eliminating damaged neurons, protein plaques associated with dementia or other brain diseases.

Now, using a new CRISPR method we’ve developed, we can discover how to actually control these microglia so that they stop generating toxins and go back to their essential cleaning duties. This capability opens up the possibility for an entirely new type of therapeutic approach. Most of the genes known to increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease work through microglial cells. Therefore, these cells have a significant impact on how these neurodegenerative diseases manifest.

Martin Kampmann, senior author of the study

Microglia behaves like the immune system of the brain. Ordinary immune cells cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. It is therefore the task of the microglia to clean up waste products and toxins, while the neurons function optimally. If the microglia begin to lose weight, there may be brain inflammation and neuron damage. In some cases, it can also remove synapses between neurons.

Kampmann and his research team want to understand which genes are involved in microglia activity and their regulation. By succeeding in having this knowledge, they could then activate And deactivate the genes line up the rebel cells. Microglia are resistant to the CRISPR technique. A technique in which desired genetic material is placed into the cell using a virus to guide it. Here, the expert Kampmann “convinced” the stem cells of volunteers to turn into microglia.

In practice, it has been developed new platform which combines a form of CRISPR that allows researchers to deactivate and activate individual genes. In addition, there are data on the functions and states of individual cells of the microglia. Thus, it was possible to know the existence of genes that affect the cell’s ability to survive and proliferate. Also understand how much a cell is actively producing inflammatory substances and how aggressively a cell can prune synapses.

In this way, by knowing the genes controlling these activities, the scholars and the expert could: to recover the ones. So that the diseased cell becomes healthy again. Kampmann expects to be able to research and find specific molecules that act on the genes that are useful for making diseased cells fully healthy again.