#cognitive disorders

Tackling Tau to Treat Alzheimer’s

UC San Diego researchers and collaborators in Italy identified an inhibitor that may be effective against DYRK1A, an emerging drug target for Alzheimer’s disease. In lab experiments, the inhibitor reduced phosphate tags added to tau — a protein that abnormally accumulates inside Alzheimer’s neurons — by enzymes called kinases, thus stabilizing cell structures. They say this kinase inhibitor is a promising prototype for new therapeutics that tackle tau hyperphosphorylation, which occurs in some neurodegenerative diseases.

The study, led by Ruben Abagyan, PhD, professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UC San Diego, and Andrea Cavalli, PhD, professor at University of Bologna, was published December 16, 2021 in the European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

— Heather Buschman, PhD

Pictured: In the Alzheimer’s affected brain, abnormal collections of the tau protein accumulate and form tangles (seen in blue) within neurons, harming synaptic communication between nerve cells. Credit: NIH