ALZHEIMER鈥橲 disease and BSE appear to have a mechanism in common. As with BSE, it now seems that malformed proteins 鈥渟eed鈥� the formation of plaques in the brain of people with Alzheimer鈥檚.
Although the exact causes of Alzheimer鈥檚 remain a mystery, plaques of a protein called beta-amyloid build up in the brains of people with the disease, and are toxic to nerve cells.
A team led by Lary Walker at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, took beta-amyloid from such plaques and injected it into the brains of young mice genetically engineered to develop plaques at about one year of age. After the injections, plaques formed much more quickly, appearing within a few weeks (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1131864).
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鈥淔or the first time we show that the likely seed is beta-amyloid itself,鈥� says Walker.
