King's College London researchers identify karyoptosis in Alzheimer's and FTD
A team at King's College London has discovered a fresh clue in how Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) damage the brain.
They've named this process "karyoptosis": it's when toxic proteins pile up inside brain cells, making their nuclei shrink and break apart.
This finding could help explain why these diseases are so tough on memory and thinking.
Researchers show kinases control karyoptosis
Digging into thousands of brain cells, researchers saw karyoptosis in 35% of cells from people with Alzheimer's disease, much higher than in healthy brains.
They also figured out that certain enzymes called kinases control this cell death process.
When scientists blocked these kinases in laboratory tests, signs of karyoptosis dropped.
That means targeting these enzymes might open up new ways to slow down or treat brain cell loss in Alzheimer's disease and FTD someday.