Enhancing axonal transport in vivo as a therapeutic strategy for Alzheimer's disease

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A nerve cell can be compared to a telephone (the fixed line variety) and it's wire connects it to other phones. The phone sends messages into the wire, but without the wire they go nowhere and the phone is useless. However, these are living wires (axons), which need a constant supply of nutrients and proteins to keep them in good shape. These nutrients are made within the telephone (the cell body) and channelled along the wires by a miniature transport system. Waste products and survival signals travel in the opposite direction. In one of the most remarkable achievements of the human body, 100 billion nerve cells work day and night sending thousands of packages down wires up to a metre long but microscopically narrow, and we don’t even know it’s happening until it goes wrong. Like any supply chain, from frozen water pipes to army convoys, this system is vulnerable. Defective transport is a major reason why nerve cells and their wires die in Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. With the ART’s support we have studied how the transport system gets blocked. With that work now published, we are turning our attention to how to keep it running. We have found a way to boost transport in healthy mice, and with new funding we can test whether this reduces amyloid pathology and the damage to wires. We will also investigate whether human genes link the transport system to Alzheimer’s and how this might be prevented.

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