Although only tested in mice, researchers from the University of Glasgow in the UK are seeing some incredible effects from daily injections of a protein called IL-33. The study found that mice injected with this protein rapidly improved cognitive function and memory to that of normal mice of similar age within only a week.
In humans, a buildup of toxic amyloid plaques outside nerve cells is thought to trigger Alzheimer’s disease. IL-33 not only cleared out those toxic plaques in the mice, but prevented more from forming. Two types of “brain waste” usually result in Alzheimer’s disease: amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, caused by defective tau proteins that clump into thick masses inside neurons. While researchers still do not understand why these two conditions are a characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, it does appear that targeting those build-ups may be the way to treat it.
In mice, IL-33 appeared to kickstart immune cells in the brain known as microglia, and sent them toward the toxic plaques. Once they reach their destination the microglia aggressively absorbed the build-ups with the help of an enzyme called neprilysin. The process not only reduced the number and size of amyloid plaques in the brains of mice, but also prevented inflammation in the brain tissue, which previous research has linked to the growth and spread of neurofibrillary tangles and toxic plaques.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. Worldwide, 65 million people are projected to develop Alzheimer’s by the year 2030. In a press release, Professor Eddy Liew, co-director of the research, said, “Alzheimer’s disease currently has an urgent unmet clinical need. We hope that our findings can eventually be translated into humans.”
Liew added that previous genetic studies have shown that the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease contain less IL-33 protein than the brain of normal patients. However, he cautioned that, even though the preliminary findings are exciting, there “is some distance between laboratory findings and clinical applications.”
The study is about to enter Phase I clinical trials.
The research was published April 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.