Finding of Dementia Genes Could Speed Drug Discovery in Alzheimer's and Other Brain Disorders

A study published in Nature Medicine uncovered two gene clusters riddled with mutations that cause an overproduction of the tau protein, which could potentially improve efforts to develop drug treatments for Alzheimer's and other brain diseases, reports Fierce Biotech . Focusing on frontotemporal dementia, the investigators applied analytical tools to study interactions between thousands of genes, cells, and proteins. After they spotted the two gene clusters, they analyzed the mutations in three different strains of mice, observing abnormal genetic activity in the brain at different periods. This verified that the events leading to the destruction of brain cells are restricted to the two identified gene clusters. These findings offer "an important roadmap for the development of potentially effective new drugs for Alzheimer's disease and other dementia," according to UCLA Professor Daniel Geschwind.