{"id":15204,"date":"2018-05-11T08:53:33","date_gmt":"2018-05-11T08:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=15204"},"modified":"2020-06-09T12:59:34","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T12:59:34","slug":"finding-alzheimers-treatment-from-within","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/finding-alzheimers-treatment-from-within\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Alzheimer’s treatment from within"},"content":{"rendered":"

An immune molecule in the body shows promise for the treatment of Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
IL-33 regulates the ability of the immune cells (green) to clear toxic amyloid plaques (red) in the brains of mice designed to simulate Alzheimer\u2019s disease in humans.
Credit : The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Researchers have identified a molecule expressed by several types of cells that could treat Alzheimer\u2019s disease by activating an immune response. The molecule, called interleukin (IL)-33, rapidly improved the health of mice designed to have signs and symptoms similar to Alzheimer\u2019s, in a recent study conducted at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alzheimer\u2019s disease is characterized by progressive memory loss, and impaired movement, reasoning and judgment. Amyloid plaques accumulate outside brain cells, while harmful protein aggregates form inside them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Within a week of administering IL-33 to the mice, the defects in neuronal communication and memory loss were reversed. Inflammation and amyloid plaque deposits decreased after just two consecutive days of IL-33 injections.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The rapid signs of improvement were \u201cremarkable,\u201d says Nancy Ip, a neuroscientist at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who led the study.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese exciting findings showed that a protein already present in the human body has the potential to be used therapeutically to reduce Alzheimer\u2019s disease pathology and reduce its related cognitive deficits,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The researchers were inspired to investigate IL-33 because studies showed reduced expression of its gene in the brains of people with Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/span><\/p>\n

They determined IL-33 acts by promoting the recruitment of brain immune cells, called microglia, which clear away amyloid plaques. The molecule also reduces an inflammatory response in the brain, which is a hallmark of the late stages of Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

The team next plans to further elucidate how IL-33 recruits microglia and signals them to clear away plaques. They are also in the process of conducting pre-clinical drug development studies on IL-33 with an industry partner. This essential step in the process must be completed before the drug can be tested in humans.<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An immune molecule in the body shows promise for the treatment of Alzheimer\u2019s. Researchers have identified a molecule expressed by several types of cells that could treat Alzheimer\u2019s disease by activating an immune response. The molecule, called interleukin (IL)-33, rapidly improved the health of mice designed to have signs and symptoms similar to Alzheimer\u2019s, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-medicine","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",846,802,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508-300x284.jpg",300,284,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508-768x728.jpg",750,711,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",750,711,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",846,802,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",846,802,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",844,800,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",601,570,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",600,569,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",600,569,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",517,490,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",380,360,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",69,65,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",640,607,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",96,91,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/5508.jpg",150,142,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Medicine<\/a> Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}