Dementia ‘superspreader’ detected by Swiss researchers

Accumulations of proteins in the brain are suspected to be linked to the development of dementia. Keystone-SDA

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) have gained new insights into the spread of dementia diseases such as Alzheimer’s. They observed a particularly active species of protein fibres known as “superspreaders”.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Over 250 hours, the research team monitored how potentially toxic molecules formed on the surface of the fibre. The results were published in the journal Science Advances.

Accumulations of proteins in the brain are suspected to be linked to the development of dementia, which is why they are considered a promising target for new therapeutic approaches. It is already known that misfolded proteins clump together to form fibre-like structures known as fibrils.

+ Medicines regulators weigh hope and hype with new Alzheimer’s drugs

EMPA announced on Monday that the particular subspecies of fibrils observed in this study exhibited particularly high catalytic activity at their edges and surface. New protein building blocks accumulate on the surface, which leads to the binding of long-chain fibrils.

+ Breakthrough Alzheimer’s drug produced in Switzerland

The proteins were analysed unchanged in a salt solution at room temperature, which corresponds to the physiological conditions in the human body. The analyses were then compared with molecular model calculations.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].