New Aluminum & Amyloid Plaque Study

From Dr. Chris Exley

We have a new paper on how metals influence the aggregation of amyloid beta. You can access it FOC over the next 50 days using this link;

https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1d0t3,LXbk565m

We published our first research in this area in 1993 when we were the first group to show that amyloid beta binds aluminium AND importantly that this interaction could explain the co-localisation of aluminium and amyloid beta in brain tissue in Alzheimer’s disease. I suppose that we and others have spent the next, almost 30 years, trying to determine if this interaction is an integral part of the aetiology of Alzheimer’s disease. A re-occurring suggestion within the AD scientific literature is that the early stages of the aggregation of amyloid beta are critical to its potential neurotoxicity. Smaller aggregates of amyloid beta persisting for longer being the most toxic forms to cells and neurones.

In this paper we show that the early stages of the interaction of aluminium with amyloid beta promotes the presence and persistence of smaller aggregates of the metal-amyloid aggregates. We do not see the same effects with copper.

The dramatic co-localisation of aluminium and amyloid beta in familial AD (see our recent study in JAD https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-disease/jad191140) may be downstream events originating from early interactions between aluminium and amyloid beta.