medicine
Alzheimer’s is a brain disease in which nerve cells die, the causes are up to 80 percent inherited. A research team with Austrian participation has now been able to identify 75 of the presumably almost 100 risk gene loci.
The majority (42) of these were previously unknown. This makes it easier to determine the risk of a disease outbreak, the team rewrites Celine Bellenguez and Jean-Charles Lambert from the University of Lille (France) in the journal “Nature Genetics”. The researchers compared the genomes of over 111,000 Alzheimer’s patients and over 677,000 people without this dementia. Doctors from the Donaustadt Clinic in Vienna, the Medical University of Vienna and the Medical University of Graz were also involved in the study.
Genes for inflammation and improper protein folding
In the known risk zones were genes for proteins that cause characteristic deposits in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, namely beta-amyloid plaques and tau fibrils. Furthermore, many risk genes are active in immune cells called “microglia,” which normally protect the brain by clearing plaques, but sometimes hit a “tipping point” and destroy thinking cells instead.
The newly discovered risk areas contain genes for a messenger substance called tumor necrosis factor alpha, which promotes inflammatory reactions. There are also genes for a device called “lubac” that marks tangled (misfolded) proteins so that they are removed by cellular garbage disposal and do no harm.
Better predictions conceivable
According to the researchers, the latest results assume fewer than 100 gene loci that determine the inherited risk of Alzheimer’s disease: “If these estimates are correct, our study has already characterized a large proportion of them.” new data make predictions more reliable regarding whether someone is at risk of dementia, they explained. In addition, there would now be additional targets for therapies.