Bioengineering professor and researcher, Valerie Daggett and her team developed a synthetic peptide that is capable to block the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. According to the study carried out at the University of Washington, synthetic peptides act against toxic protein aggregates that cause Alzheimer’s disease.
Before the study, scientists considered plaques as the primary reason behind Alzheimer. But the new study has proven that the smaller aggregates of amyloid-beta take the form of the toxic element and cause Alzheimer’s disease.
The study has found that synthetic peptides fold into an alpha sheet structure, and this structure can resist the amyloid-beta aggregation at the early stage of the formation of oligomers. Valerie Dagget and her team of researchers have also expressed that the synthetic alpha sheet of the peptide has a natural blocking activity to reduce amyloid-beta toxicity in neural cells.
They have conducted research on two laboratory animal models for Alzheimer’s using USA peptides. According to Valerie Dagget, synthetic peptide alpha sheet can develop therapeutics that are helpful to clear harmful oligomers.
Basically, Alzheimer’s disease is caused by the emergence of the toxic protein. The human brain continually makes neurons that further make a protein called amyloid-beta. This protein is also called monomers of amyloid-beta.
Amyloid-beta performs several important tasks for neurons. When Alzheimer’s disease targets the brain, then amyloid-beta leaves its functionality and makes a cluster of many proteins. Further, they are turned into a large deposit and make Alzheimer’s disease symptoms visible.
