health & wellness

muubm And Alzheimer's

Israel researchers see gene as
possible key to curing both illnesses.

David Shamah

I Times of Israel

Tel Aviv University team
may have discovered the key
to solving two seemingly
different medical issues, which affect
two very different populations.
A gene called ADNP could be
responsible for causing higher levels
of autism in boys — who suffer from
the condition far more than girls do
— as well as the increased levels of
Alzheimer's disease in elderly women.
According to Tel Aviv University's
Professor Illana Gozes, "If
we understand how ADNP,
an activity-related neuro-
protective protein, which
is a major regulatory gene,
acts differently in males
and females, we can try to
optimize drugs for poten-
tial future therapeutics
to treat both autism and
Alzheimer's disease:'
Gozes holds the Lily and Avraham
Gildor Chair for the Investigation of
Growth Factors and is director of the
Adams Super Center for Brain Studies
at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine
and a member of Tel Aviv University's
Sagol School of Neuroscience. For
more than a decade, her team has
been researching how ADNP affects
a series of age- and gender-related
conditions. Gozes is one of the world's
greatest experts in the area.
ADNP, or activity-dependent neu-
roprotective protein, is actually used
as the name for the gene that encodes
a protein called activity-dependent
neuroprotector homeobox (the term
"gene" and "protein" are generally
applied interchangeably to ADNP in
scientific literature). In studies over
the past 15 years, scientists, including
Gozes, have found that ADNP muta-
tions can cause not only autism, but
also Alzheimer's.
In a study last year, for example,
Gozes and the TAU team discovered
how loss of NAP, a snippet of ADNP
essential for brain formation, exposes
cells to physical damage that eventu-
ally destroys them, triggering demen-
tia-related diseases like Alzheimer's.
However, applying proteins with NAP-
like properties to cells makes them
healthy again — opening the door to
possible treatments for Alzheimer's

A

It may be beautiful on the
outside but it's what's on th
inside that counts

REGEN ISTREET

c'eR,OF WEST BLOOMFIELDK55)

ASSISTED LIVING

regentstreetwestbloomfield.com

Call us today at (248) 683-1010.

4460 • rchard Lake Road
West Bloomfield, MI 48323

ra

Ask about our dedicated Memory Care Unit

50 February 26 • 2015

JN

and other degenerative diseases.
The current study, published this
month in the Journal of Translational
Psychiatry, sheds even more light
on how ADNP affects Alzheimer's
patients — and provides insights into
how the gene could affect males and
females differently.
In the study, Gozes and her team
examined the behavioral response of
male and female mice — both ADNP-
altered and normal — to different
cognitive challenges and social situ-
ations. To do so, they removed one
copy of the ADNP gene from some
mice, and then examined their
respective responses to unfa-
miliar objects, odors and other
mice.
Their results revealed sex-
specific learning and memory
differences in the mice. In the
younger male mice, the lack
of ADNP caused deficien-
cies in object recognition
and social memory, typical of
autistic behavior. However, for older
females, the removal of the gene
caused them to withdraw and become
more socially deficient, a hallmark of
dementia-related diseases, especially
Alzheimer's.
The results showed, for the first
time, that there was a gender-related
— and age-related — difference in the
effect of ADNP on mouse behavior,
said Gozes. The next step is to expand
the study and extend it to human
clinical trials.
"This study emphasizes the need to
analyze men and women separately in
clinical trials to find cures for diseases
because they may respond differently:'
she explained.
"ADNP may be new to the world
of autism, but I have been studying
it for 15 years:' Gozes added. "Its
gender-dependent expression changes
male and female chemical tendencies
toward different neurological disor-
ders. Male and female mice may look
the same and their brains may look
the same, but they are not. When the
expression of ADNP is different, it
may cause different behaviors and dif-
ferent cognitive abilities:'
Further work is needed, added
the professor, but the team's research
could one day turn into a treatment to
alleviate, or even reverse, Alzheimer's
disease, as well as autism.

❑

