They talk about eliminating excess cholesterol from the brain, but what problems does that cause since 25% of the cholesterol in your body is found in your brain?
I would ask this of our stroke associations but that would be a waste of time and effort, they don't care about solving any problems in stroke.
http://neurosciencenews.com/tau-cholesterol-alzheimers-2638/
We have known for some years that Alzheimer’s disease is
characterised by two types of lesions, amyloid plaques and degenerated
tau protein. Cholesterol plays an important role in the physiopathology
of this disease. Two French research teams (Inserm/CEA/University of
Lille/University of Paris-Sud ) have just shown, in a rodent model, that
overexpressing an enzyme that can eliminate excess cholesterol from the
brain may have a beneficial action on the tau component of the disease,
and completely correct it. This is the first time that a direct
relationship has been shown between the tau component of Alzheimer’s
disease and cholesterol. This work is published in the 10 September 2015
issue of Human Molecular Genetics.
xcess brain cholesterol cannot freely cross the blood-brain barrier;
to be eliminated it must be converted into 24-hydroxycholesterol
(24-OHC) by the enzyme CYP46A1 (cholesterol-24-hydroxylase). At Inserm
Unit 1169, Nathalie, Cartier, coordinator of this work, and Patrick
Aubourg, director of the unit, proposed the hypothesis that increasing
the efflux of cholesterol from the brain by overexpressing CYP46A1 might
have a beneficial effect on the elements of Alzheimer pathology.
The first step in this work made it possible to show that injecting a
viral vector, AAV-CYP46A1, effectively corrects a mouse model of
amyloid pathology of the disease, the APP23 mouse. CYP46A1 thus appears
to be a therapeutic target for Alzheimer’s disease.
Conversely, in vivo inhibition of CYP46A1 in the mice, using
antisense RNA molecules delivered by an AAV vector administered to the
hippocampus, induces an increase in the production of Aß peptides,
abnormal tau protein, neuronal death and hippocampal atrophy, leading to
memory problems. Together these elements reproduce a phenotype
mimicking Alzheimer’s disease.
These results demonstrate the key role of cholesterol in the disease,
and confirm the relevance of CYP46A1 as a potential therapeutic target
(work published in Brain on 3 July 2015).
Taken together, this work now enables the research team coordinated
by Nathalie Cartier, Inserm Research Director, to propose a gene therapy
approach for Alzheimer’s disease: intracerebral administration of a
vector, AAV-CYP46A1, in patients with early and severe forms (1% of
patients, familial forms) for whom there is no available treatment.
“To achieve this objective, we are carrying out all the preclinical
steps of development and validation of the tools (vector, neurosurgical
protocol, elements of monitoring) for demonstrating the efficacy and
tolerance of the strategy, in order to submit an application for
authorisation of a clinical trial,” explains Nathalie Cartier.
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