Study reveals possible biochemical trigger for Alzheimer's disease

The researchers compared the glycosylation of APP fragments in postmortem brain samples from people who had Alzheimer’s and from people who didn’t have the disease.They found different patterns of APP glycosylation in the two types of sample.When they performed chemical analyses in cell cultures that produce APP, they found evidence that different patterns of glycosylation of APP might be associated with different processing of this protein.“There is an indication that [APP] is synthesized differently and therefore can be processed in a different way, giving rise to the toxic cascade that triggers Alzheimer’s disease,” concludes Sáez-Valero.The next step, say the researchers, will be to compare the glycosylation of APP fragments in the cerebrospinal fluid of people with Alzheimer’s and healthy participants in a control group.Past attempts to use APP fragments as biomarkers of the disease have yielded mixed results.