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Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disease that results in cognitive decline, and eventually death. In the brain, the disease causes neurons to die and break down, and involves high levels of a peptide called amyloid and aggregations of a protein called tau. However, scientists are coming to appreciate that inflammation may also play a role. "Alzheimer's brains usually contain evidence of neuroinflammation, and researchers increasingly think that this could be a possible driver of the disease, by causing neurons in the brain to degenerate," says David Emery, a researcher from the University of Bristol, and an author on the study, which was recently published in  Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience . So, what's causing this inflammation? Some genetic risk-factors for Alzheimer's disease can have effects on the inflammatory response, but infection may also play a role. " Neuroinflammation in the brain may be a reaction to the presence of bacteria...

The new methodology involves easily trapping proteins that bear a specific modification that can provide potential markers for conditions. The specific modification is based on sugar and when attached to a protein affects how the protein functions. Protein modification is a normal, carefully regulated cellular function, but in some instances this can go wrong. Alzheimer's, along with other conditions including cancers, type 2 diabetes, and cardio-vascular disease, is affected by dysregulation (abnormal or imperfect regulation) of these sugar modifications to proteins. Identifying such proteins is a key step in understanding their involvement in these various conditions. The newly developed methodology  could open the way for treatments that target these protein alterations, and ultimately the condition. Previously, capturing these proteins has been very difficult as the sugar modification was prone to falling off the protein. In order to capture them, researcher's req...