Acta Neuropathol: Uncovering how Alzheimer's disease develops further through exosomes?

February 5, 2021 // -- Scientists from the University of Queensland and others have found a new type of "seeding" process in brain cells, or causes dementia and Alzheimer's disease, in a study published in the international journal Acta Neuropathologica.
researcher Jürgen G? Professor Tz said that as a major marker of dementia, tangled neurons form partly because of a "misguided" cellular process that allows the toxic protein tau protein to leak into healthy brain cells.
this leakage creates a damaging seeding process that promotes tau protein entanglement, which eventually leads to memory loss and other damage in patients.
picture Source: Dr. Juan Polanco et. Al. So far, scientists don't understand how the seeds of the tau protein begin to escape when they enter healthy cells; in Alzheimer's patients, it seems that the sac structure, called exosomes, inside and outside the cells can induce a reaction to perforate the membranes of their cells and allow the poisonous seeds to escape.
as more tau proteins accumulate in the brain, they eventually form tangled structures that together form an abnormally configured protein called amyloid, which eventually produces key features of these neurological disorders.
Related studies may help scientists clarify the molecular mechanisms that occur in non-genetic forms of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias; the more researchers understand the molecular mechanisms behind them, the more they can intervene in the process and slow or block the onset or progression of the disease.
like Alzheimer's disease, this cellular process can play a leading role in other cognitive diseases, from forebear dementia to rare neurological diseases that carry toxic tau proteins.
even in cancer research, there is evidence that these exosomes can load special information to reflect the condition of tumors and promote cancer cell replication and rapid spread in the body.
Finally, researchers who improve understanding the molecular mechanisms of the spread of Alzheimer's disease and other diseases through exosomes may help us develop new ways to treat and intervene in these cellular processes, and are now struggling to see how exosomes and cellular dysfunction play a key role as risk factors in neurodegenerative diseases.
original source: Juan Carlos Polanco, Gabriel Rhys Hand, Adam Briner, et al. Exosomes induce endolysosomal permeabilization as a gateway by which exosomal tau seeds escape into the cytosol, Acta Neuropathologica (2021). DOI:10.1007/s00401-020-02254-3