Alzheimer's mechanism found

LOS ANGELES, Jun 09, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- An international team of researchers says it has found a fundamental molecular mechanism that appears to play an important role in Alzheimer's.

David Eisenberg, director of the UCLA-DOE Institute of Genomics and Proteomics, said amyloid fibrils -- rope-like structures linked by proteins -- may offer important clues to the disease.

Eisenberg and colleagues report in the current issue of Nature the structures are like a "molecular zipper."

"Proteins live in water, but here all the water is squeezed out as the fibril is sealed and zipped up," Eisenberg said. "Our hypothesis is that this dry steric zipper forms ..., and is universal in the fibrils. Once this steric zipper has formed, it's very difficult to reverse because it's so tight."

"Knowing the structure may provide a rational basis for developing drugs to fight these diseases," said Melinda Balbirnie, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar and a member of the research team.