- FRIDAY, Aug. 22 (HealthDay News) — A new method of identifying protein
structures related to Alzheimer's disease has been developed by
researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The research team says its computer-based technique could help in the
development of drugs that could prevent the formation of such
structures.

Alzheimer's disease is characterized by two kinds of proteins (amyloid
and tau) that accumulate in the brain. In a study published in the Aug. 22
issue of PLoS Computational Biology, the MIT team focused on
tau.

Most proteins have similar structures, so “you can measure the lengths
of individual molecules, and the average will be a pretty good description
of any one,” team leader Dr. Collin M. Stultz, an associate professor of
biomedical engineering, explained in an MIT news release.

But tau molecules “are all over the place — they're so diverse that
it's difficult to get one measurement that describes all of the possible
structures,” Stultz said. This makes it a challenge to detect specific tau
structures associated with Alzheimer's.

The MIT team developed a method called Energy-minima Mapping and
Weighting (EMW) and “generated lots and lots of structures for both normal
tau and a mutant form” associated with an increased risk for Alzheimer's
disease.

Further analysis revealed that one structure was more common in the
mutant form of tau and therefore likely to play a role in the development
of Alzheimer's. That structure could become a target for new drug
development, Stultz said.

The study looked at one mutant form of tau associated with Alzheimer's,
but there are several others. Stultz said he hopes to use EMW to create “a
list of all types of suspect conformations for known tau mutants. Then,
from that list, we can design drugs for each.”

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more about Alzheimer's disease.