Alzheimer's mouse, part III.First came genetically engineered genetically engineered adjective Recombinant, see there mice that developed plaques, or thick deposits of a protein called beta-amyloid, in the brain but showed no obvious memory problems (SN: 2/11/95, p. 84). Then researchers created mice whose memory skills deteriorated with age but whose brains had few amyloid plaques (SN: 6/10/95, p. 358). Now, a group of investigators from the United Kingdom and the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. has finally produced mice suffering from both of these cardinal features of Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (ăls`hī'mərz, ôls–), degenerative disease of nerve cells in the cerebral cortex that leads to atrophy of the brain and senile dementia. . They added to the mice a gene for the protein precursor A protein precursor, also called a pro-protein or pro-peptide, is an inactive protein (or peptide) that can be turned into an active form by posttranslational modification. The name of the precursor for a protein is often prefixed by pro. of beta-amyloid, having first given the gene a mutation identical to one found in a family plagued by early-onset Alzheimer's. The mice began suffering memory problems 9 to 10 months after birth, had sig- nificantly more beta-amyloid in their brains than normal mice, and developed numerous plaques, Karen Hsiao of the University of Minnesota (body, education) University of Minnesota - The home of Gopher. http://umn.edu/. Address: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. in Minneapolis and her colleagues report in the Oct. 4 Science. The researchers intend to study how well other aspects of the animals model the human disease and to use them to test potential new drugs for Alzheimer's. |
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