“We showed that cholesterol is acting essentially as a signal in neurons that determines how much Aβ gets made—and thus it should be unsurprising that apoE, which carries the cholesterol to neurons, influences Alzheimer’s risk,” says study co-senior author Scott Hansen, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Scripps Research, Florida.
Summary: A new advanced imaging technique shows how cholesterol regulates the production of Alzheimer’s associated amyloid beta proteins in astrocytes.
Source: Scripps Research Institute
A team co-led by scientists at Scripps Research has used advanced imaging methods to reveal how the production of the Alzheimer’s-associated protein amyloid beta (Aβ) in the brain is tightly regulated by cholesterol.
Appearing on line Thursday ahead of print in the Aug. 17 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the scientists’ work advances understanding of how Alzheimer’s disease develops and underscores the long-underappreciated role of brain cholesterol.
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