Researchers at Mayo Clinic have identified unique molecular changes in the blood-brain barrier that could help diagnose and treat Alzheimer’s disease., offering new avenues for diagnosis and treatment based on extensive tissue analysis and cellular studies.
They focused on brain vascular cells, which make up a small portion of cell types in the brain, to examine molecular changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease. In particular, they looked at two cell types that play an important role in maintaining the blood-brain barrier: pericytes, the gatekeepers of the brain that maintain the integrity of blood vessels, and their support cells known as astrocytes, to determine if and how they interact.
The team used stem cells from blood and skin samples of the Alzheimer’s disease patient donors and those in the control group. They treated the cells with VEGFA to see how it affected SMAD3 levels and overall vascular health. The VEGFA treatment caused a decline in SMAD3 levels in brain pericytes, indicating interaction between these molecules.Donors with higher blood SMAD3 levels had less vascular damage and better Alzheimer’s disease-related outcomes, according to the researchers.
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