THE long-suspected link between Alzheimer’s disease and abnormalities in the way amyloid protein is processed in the brain has been confirmed at last.
Usually harmless, the amyloid protein is thought to trigger neurological damage when it is broken down and transformed into toxic fragments of beta-amyloid. Previous studies have shown that people with Alzheimer’s have reduced levels of several proteins involved in processing amyloid.
To find out whether low levels of any of these proteins could cause the production of toxic beta-amyloid, Peter St George-Hyslop at the University of Toronto in Canada and colleagues studied the DNA of 6861 people,…
