Technology marches on — perhaps. But it certainly did in the following Alzheimer’s research [ Neuron vol. 104 pp. 256 – 270 ’19 ] . The work used (1) CRISPR (2) iPSCs (3) transcriptomics (4) translatomics to study Alzheimer’s. Almost none of this would have been possible 10 years ago.
Presently over 200 mutations are known in (1) the amyloid precursor protein — APP (2) presenilin1 (3) presenilin2. The presenilins are components of the gamma secretase complex which cleaves APP on the way to the way to the major components of the senile plaque, Abeta40 and Abeta42.
There’s a lot of nomenclature, so here’s a brief review. The amyloid precursor protein (APP) comes in 3 isoforms containing 770, 751 and 695 amino acids. APP is embedded in the plasma membrane with most of the amino acids extracellular. The crucial enzyme for breaking APP down is gamma secretase, which cleaves APP inside the membrane. Gamma secretase is made of 4 proteins, 2 of which are the presenilins. Cleavage results in a small carboxy terminal fragment (which the paper calls beta-CTF) and a large amino terminal fragment. If beta secretase (another enzyme) cleaves the amino terminal fragment Abeta40 and Abeta42 are formed. If alpha secretase (a third enzyme) cleaves the amino terminal fragment — Abeta42 is not formed. Got all that?
Where do CRISPR and iPSCs come in? iPSC stands for induced pluripotent stem cells, which can be made from cells in your skin (but not easily). Subsequently adding the appropriate witches brew can cause them to differentiate into a variety of cells — cortical neurons in this case.
CRISPR was then used to introduce mutations characteristic of familial Alzheimer’s disease into either APP or presenilin1. Some 16 cell lines each containing a different familial Alzheimer disease mutation were formed.
Then the iPSCs were differentiated into cortical neurons, and the mRNAs (transcriptomics) and proteins made from them (translatomics) were studied.
Certainly a technological tour de force.
What did they find? Well for the APP and the presenilin1 mutations had effects on Abeta peptide production (but they differered). Both however increased the accumulation of beta-CTF. This could be ‘rescued’ by inhibition of beta-secretase — but unfortunately clinical trials have not shown beta-secretase inhibitors to be helpful.
What did increased beta-CTF actually do — there was enlargement of early endosomes in all the cell lines. How this produces Alzheimer’s disease is anyone’s guess.
Also quite interesting, is the fact that translatomics and transcriptomics of all 16 cell lines showed ‘dysregulation’ of genes which have been associated with Alzheimer’s disease risk — these include APOE, CLU and SORL1.
Certainly a masterpiece of technological virtuosity.
So technology gives us bigger and better results
Or does it?
There was a very interesting paper on the effect of sleep on cerebrospinal fluid and blood flow in the brain [ Science vol. 366 pp. 372 – 373 ’19 ] It contained the following statement –”
During slow wave sleep, the cerebral blood flow is reduced by 25%, which lowers cerebral blood volume by ~10%. The reference for this statement was work done in 1991.
I thought this was a bit outre, so I wrote one of the authors.
Dr. X “Isn’t there something more current (and presumably more accurate) than reference #3 on cerebral blood flow in sleep? If there isn’t, the work should be repeated”
I got the following back “The old studies are very precise, more precise than current studies.”
Go figure.
Chemiotics II 