New clue to Alzheimer's found

by sweet east pearl | June 22, 2008 at 11:47 pm
171 views | 0 Recommendations | 1 comment

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have uncovered a new clue to the cause of Alzheimer's disease.

The brains of people with the memory-robbing form of dementia are cluttered with a plaque made up of beta-amyloid, a sticky protein. But there long has been a question whether this is a cause of the disease or a side effect. Also involved are tangles of a protein called tau; some scientists suspect this is the cause.

Now, researchers have caused Alzheimer's symptoms in rats by injecting them with one particular form of beta-amyloid. Injections with other forms of beta-amyloid did not cause illness, which may explain why some people have beta-amyloid plaque in their brains but do not show disease symptoms.

recommend This comment thread is now closed
0
Sanjay Bhardwaj

Hope for Alzheimer’s Researchers, rPeptide made possible to purify the beta amyloid, recombinantly  a major culprit of Alzheimer Diseases.

ADVANTAGES OF RECOMBINANT BETA-AMYLOID PEPTIDES

· Batch to Batch Consistency*: of Physical, Chemical and Biological Properties

· Purity: Consistently >97%

· Oxidation: No oxidation of the 35Met. A mutant 35Met-Valine, is available to study the effect of oxidation of methionine.

· Chemical Modifications: None (like racemerization).

· Uniformly full length peptides: No n-1, n-2 subspecies in each lot

· Uniformly Labeled Peptides: Can economically and uniformly label with 15N, 13C and 15N+13C

· Net Peptide Content: Recombinant Abeta sold as “net” peptide content rather than ‘total’ content, which includes 20%-40% salt.

* Batch to batch consistency is THE biggest problem with synthetic beta-amyloid peptides, which is not there in recombinant beta-amyloids. Outlined below is one of the reasons why this happens:

When a synthetic beta-amyloid is made, the final full length peptide is in a crude prep mixture. Beta-amyloid being highly hydrophobic binds non-specifically to impurities like heavy metals which are not detectable on HPLC or Mass Spec, but could alter the biological properties of the peptide. In every synthetic prep this will vary, leading to variability in the biological properties.

rPeptide’s recombinant beta-amyloid peptides are prepared as a very soluble (proprietary) fusion, to significantly reduce the non-specific binding in an impure prep. This soluble fusion is purified to >90% purity and then cleaved to give the final beta-amyloid peptides, which are further purified to >97% purity. As a result, rPeptide’s recombinant beta-amyloids gives a much greater batch to batch reproducibility.

Batch to batch consistency is THE biggest problem with synthetic beta-amyloid peptides, which is not there in recombinant beta-amyloids. Outlined below is one of the reasons why this happens:

When a synthetic beta-amyloid is made, the final full length peptide is in a crude prep mixture. Beta-amyloid being highly hydrophobic binds non-specifically to impurities like heavy metals which are not detectable on HPLC or Mass Spec, but could alter the biological properties of the peptide. In every synthetic prep this will vary, leading to variability in the biological properties.

rPeptide’s recombinant beta-amyloid peptides are prepared as a very soluble (proprietary) fusion, to significantly reduce the non-specific binding in an impure prep. This soluble fusion is purified to >90% purity and then cleaved to give the final beta-amyloid peptides, which are further purified to >97% purity. As a result, rPeptide’s recombinant beta-amyloids gives a much greater batch to batch reproducibility.

Sanjay Bhardwaj
91-9871465498
sanjayb@rpeptide.com
http://www.rpeptide.com

This story was created over 3 months ago, the comment thread is now closed.

closeSign in to NowPublic

is reporting from