Sandra Rossie found that an enzyme blocks a mechanism that can lead to neural cell death. (Credit: Purdue Agricultural Communication photo/Tom Campbell)
ScienceDaily (Oct. 12, 2009) — A Purdue University researcher has discovered that the amount of an enzyme present in neurons can affect the mechanism thought to cause cell death in Alzheimer's disease patients and may have applications for other diseases such as stroke and heart attack.
Sandra Rossie, a professor of biochemistry, found that increasing the amount of protein phosphatase 5, or PP5, in rat neural cells resulted in less cell death associated with reactive oxygen species, which chemically damage cell molecules. Conversely, decreasing PP5 caused greater cell death. The results of Rossie's study are published in the early online version of The Journal of Neurochemistry.
Alzheimer's, a degenerative neurological disease affecting around 5 million people, results in memory loss and dementia. One theory on the cause of Alzheimer's is that overproduction of certain forms of amyloid beta protein by neurons leads to the generation of reactive oxygen species, which activate stress pathways.
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