Researchers have discovered important links between Alzheimer's disease, cancer and COVID-19

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Vanderbilt University Medical Center) researchers discovered a kind of nanoparticles released from cells, called "super particles", which contain enzymes, proteins and RNA, and a variety of cancer, cardiovascular diseases , Alzheimer’s disease and even COVID-19

This discovery was published in the journal Nature Cell Biology on December 9, 2021.

The senior author of the paper Robert Coffey, MD, said: "We have discovered some biomarkers and therapeutic targets in cancer and many other disease states, and these biomarkers and therapeutic targets may be the carriers of these super particles

The author of this article, Professor Coffey of Medicine and Cell and Developmental Biology, is well known for his research on colorectal cancer

(Front row from left) Dr.

(Back row from left) Dr.

In 2019, Dr.

That year, another colleague of Coffey, Dr.

In the current study, Zhang took the "supernatant", which is the liquid that remains after the exopolymer is rotated into "particles," and centrifuged the liquid faster and longer

The result is nanoparticles separated from the supernatant of the spinning exosomes, which the researchers named supermeres

First, supermeres carry extracellular RNA released by most cells, and these RNAs are present in the blood

Supermeres are important carriers of TGFBI, which is a protein that promotes tumor progression in established tumors

They also carry ACE2, a cell surface receptor that plays a role in cardiovascular disease and the target of the COVID-19 virus

Another important cargo is APP, an amyloid beta precursor protein that is involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease

Researchers from the University of Notre Dame pointed out in a review article published with this paper: “Identified such a wealth of bioactive molecules.

Reference: "Supermeres are functional extracellular nanoparticles replete with disease biomarkers and therapeutic targets" by Qin Zhang, Dennis K.
Jeppesen, James N.
Higginbotham, Ramona Graves-Deal, Vincent Q.
Trinh, Marisol A.
Ramirez, Yoojin Sohn, Abigail C Neininger, Nilay Taneja, Eliot T.
McKinley, Hiroaki Niitsu, Zheng Cao, Rachel Evans, Sarah E.
Glass, Kevin C.
Ray, William H.
Fissell, Salisha Hill, Kristie Lindsey Rose, Won Jae Huh, Mary Kay Washington, Gregory Daniel Ayers, Dylan T.
Burnette, Shivani Sharma, Leonard H.
Rome, Jeffrey L.
Franklin, Youngmin A.
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Coffey, 9 December 2021, Nature Cell Biology .

DOI: 10.
1038/s41556-021 -00805-8