IRON overload may accelerate Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, according to research that also reveals the role of beta-amyloid precursor protein (APP), which forms plaques in affected brains.
Jack Rogers at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues, used mouse studies, healthy human brain cells and post-mortems to show that APP鈥檚 role is probably to flush toxic iron from neurons. But in Alzheimer鈥檚, the APP鈥檚 function is sabotaged by zinc, which accumulates in the disease鈥檚 trademark plaques (Cell, ).
Normally, zinc aids neuronal signalling, but as it becomes trapped in plaques, it both disrupts APP鈥檚 iron-clearing role and denies neurons the zinc they need for signalling. The outcome is a double-whammy which sees iron continuing to accumulate and neurons losing their ability to signal appropriately.
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