Scientists are testing vaccines as potential treatments for Alzheimer's, in an attempt to reign in harmful immune activity tied to the disease.
Despite decades of Alzheimer's research, scientists have not found a treatment that halts or dramatically slows the disease. Now, scientists are investigating if a completely new approach — so-called Alzheimer's vaccines — could alter the disease's course.
In this theory, inflammatory signals reach the brain, stimulating the production of beta-amyloid proteins, which may have antimicrobial properties intended to kill harmful invaders. However, when these proteins confuse healthy brain cells with microbes, they aggregate into plaques that damage the brain. Meanwhile, the cells that would normally mop up beta-amyloid — microglia — are underactive in Alzheimer's.
The evidence that BCG is associated with a lower Alzheimer's risk and has long-term immune effects led Charles Greenblatt, a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a leader of one of the observational studies, and his colleagues to test BCG as an Alzheimer's vaccine.
Chitnis told Live Science that Protollin is made of bits of bacteria that are recognized by immune cells called macrophages. A 2008 mouse study suggests Protollin doesn't directly train the immune system to attack beta-amyloid but rather broadly activates immune cells so that they eat the proteins. In theory, Protollin could also make the immune cells more responsive to the bacteria and viruses thought to raise the risk of Alzheimer's in the first place.
"Once the immune system is activated against an endogenous [body-made] peptide or protein, it is not simple to shut down the activation of the immune system," Nowick said."A vaccine could thus produce a serious autoimmune response." It isn't as simple as turning inflammation on or off — in Alzheimer's, the microglia aren't active while other processes that release beta-amyloid might be hyperactive.
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