https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180621121914.htm
(Edited Post to Add)More evidence for controversial theory that herpesviruses play role in Alzheimer's disease
Date:
June 21, 2018
Source:
Cell Press
Summary:
In a large-scale analysis, researchers use data from three different brain banks to suggest that human herpesviruses are more abundant in the brains of Alzheimer's patients and may play a role in regulatory genetic networks that are believed to lead to the disease. This work lends support to the controversial hypothesis that viruses are involved in Alzheimer's disease and offers potential new paths for treatment.
... in a large-scale analysis published June 21 in the journal Neuron, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai use data from three different brain banks to suggest that human herpesviruses are more abundant in the brains of Alzheimer's patients and may play a role in regulatory genetic networks that are believed to lead to the disease. This work lends support to the controversial hypothesis that viruses are involved in Alzheimer's disease and offers potential new paths for treatment.
...
They found that human herpesvirus DNA and RNA were more abundant in the brains of those diagnosed postmortem with Alzheimer's disease and that abundance correlated with clinical dementia scores. And the two viruses they found to be most strongly associated with Alzheimer's, HHV-6A and HHV-7, were not as abundant in the brains of those with other neurodegenerative disorders. When they constructed networks that modeled how the viral genes and human genes interacted, they were able to show that the viral genes were regulating and being regulated by the human genes -- and that genes associated with increased Alzheimer's risk were impacted.
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