A neuron with
amyloid-plaques. (photo: Juan Gärtner/ Fotolia)
Promising results with inhibitors of amyloid formation
(September 24, 2015) When
proteins change their structure and clump together, formation of amyloid
fibrils and plaques may occur. Such “misfolding” and “protein aggregation”
processes damage cells and cause diseases such as Alzheimer's and type 2
diabetes. A team of scientists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM)
headed by Professor Aphrodite Kapurniotu have now developed molecules that
suppress protein aggregation and could pave the way for new treatments to
combat Alzheimer's, type 2 diabetes and other cell-degenerative diseases.
The scientists designed and studied 16 different peptide
molecules in order to find out which of them are able to impede the “clumping”
of the proteins amyloid beta (Aß) and islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP), which
are associated with Alzheimer's and type 2 diabetes.
The molecules were designed on the basis of scientific work
that shows that the Aβ and IAPP proteins interact with each other, and that
this “cross-amyloid interaction” suppresses their clumping. The researchers
selected short sequences of the IAPP protein that correspond to the key regions
involved in the interaction with the Alzheimer's protein. These "hot
segments" were then chemically linked to each other by using specific
peptide segments as “linkers” in order to mimic and optimize the IAPP
cross-amyloid interaction surface.