A study published in Molecular Neurodegeneration by Brigham and Women’s Hospital has established a new protein that may contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.
Aside from amyloid beta and tau levels, researchers identified ganglioside GM2 activator (GM2A) as a protein able to decrease neuronal firing and reduce neurite integrity, thus potentially contributing to Alzheimer’s.
“We expose cultured neurons to aqueous-soluble human brain extract from 43 individuals across a spectrum of Alzheimer’s (AD) pathology,” according to the study’s authors.
“We observe associations between spontaneous activity and Aβ42:40 levels, between neurite integrity and oligomeric Aβ, and between neurite integrity and tau levels present in the brain extracts.”
“The techniques and data herein introduce a system for modeling neuronal vulnerability in response to factors in the human brain and provide insights into proteins potentially contributing to AD pathogenesis.”
