Alzheimer's Disease May Spread to Organ Transplant Patients - as Experts Call for Dementia Screening of All Donors
Alzheimer's disease could spread to patients whoreceivetransplants containing potentiallytoxicgenes,astudysuggests.
Canadian researchers are calling for all donors to be screened in case the disease goes undetected.
In the new study, the researchers looked at mice transplanted with bone marrow stem cells from donors with familial Alzheimer's disease.
This form of the disease, caused by a single gene mutation that is passed down in families, affects nearly 350,000 Americans and 1% of Alzheimer's patients in the United Kingdom.
Patients with this type of Alzheimer's disease carry a defective version of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) gene.
For the first time, this study shows that this process begins outside the central nervous system and reaches the brain to cause the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer's disease.
The researchers found that mice showed signs of cognitive decline at six months of age.
The study was conducted amid shocking evidence from the UK that suggests that at least five people have 'caught' memory-stealing Alzheimer's disease due to the now-banned hormone treatment.
The authors of the new study called for screening blood, tissue, and organ donors for Alzheimer's disease to prevent its spread.
But more research is needed to see if the effects are the same in humans and other species, they noted.
Dr. Wilfred Jeffries, senior author of the study and an immunologist at the University of British Columbia, said, 'This supports the idea that Alzheimer's disease is a systemic disease and that amyloid expressed outside the brain is involved in the pathogenesis of the central nervous system.
As we continue to explore this mechanism, Alzheimer's disease may be the tip of the iceberg, and we need much better management and screening of donors used for blood, organ, and tissue transplants and transplants of human-derived stem cells and blood products.'
Alzheimer's Disease Can Be Transmitted Between Humans: Pioneering research has revealed that at least five people have been "infected" with the memory-robbing disease.
Alzheimer's disease can spread among humans, a landmark study has revealed.
It is not known whether Alzheimer's disease is caused by the donation of organs or bone marrow.
The new study was published Thursday in Stem Cell Reports.
The researchers transplanted APP-containing stem cells into bone marrow (a spongy substance found in the center of bones) and divided them into two groups: mice without the APP gene (APP knockout) and mice with normally functioning APP.
As a result, mice with the APP gene functioning normally showed signs of cognitive decline within 9 months, while mice without the gene showed features of Alzheimer's disease after only 6 months.
Normally, mice prone to familial Alzheimer's disease begin to show symptoms at 11 to 12 months of age.
In mice, these symptoms usually include loss of short-term and long-term memory and lack of fear. Brain signs include accumulation of amyloid in the brain and leakage of the blood-brain barrier.
Dr. Chahat Singh, lead author of the study and a neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia, said, 'The fact that we saw significant behavioral differences and cognitive decline in APP knockouts after six months was surprising, but intriguing only because it showed an accelerated disease appearance after transfer. The results of this study are very interesting," he said.
The results of this study suggest that mutated APP genes in donor stem cells cause disease in people who do not have the gene, while people with normal APP genes are more susceptible to the disease. The team also concluded that Alzheimer's disease may form from amyloid proteins found outside the central nervous system.
This finding follows a British study that found evidence that at least five patients injected with growth hormone containing amyloid-beta protein 'seeds' taken from cadavers 'developed' early-onset Alzheimer's disease later in life.
More than 1,800 other patients who received the treatment were deemed 'at risk.
An NIH panel announced in January that it would launch an 'urgent' investigation into the study, claiming that about 8,000 American children were injected with the treatment between the 1960s and 1980s.
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