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   Using light to treat Alzheimer's disease   
      
   November 12, 2015   
      
      
       
    Using light to treat Alzheimer's disease   
   Deposits of Beta-Amyloid in Fruit Flies Stopped by Using Porphyrin and Blue   
   LED Lights. Credit: KAIST   
   A Korean research team jointly led by Professor Chan Beum Park of the   
   Materials Science and Engineering Department at Korea Advanced Institute of   
   Science and Technology (KAIST) and Dr. Kwon Yu from the Bionano Center at the   
   Korea Research Institute of    
   Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) conducted research to suppress an   
   abnormal assembly of beta-amyloids, a protein commonly found in the brain, by   
   using photo-excited porphyrins.   
      
   Beta-amyloid plaques are known to cause Alzheimer's disease. This research   
   finding suggests new ways to treat neurodegenerative illnesses including   
   Alzheimer's disease. It was published online as the lead article in the   
   September 21th issue of Angewandte    
   Chemie. The title of the article is "Photo-excited Porphyrins as a Strong   
   Suppressor of ß-Amyloid Aggregation and Synaptic Toxicity."   
      
   Light-induced treatments using organic photosensitizers have advantages to   
   managing the treatment in time and area. In the case of cancer treatments,   
   doctors use photodynamic therapies where a patient is injected with an organic   
   photosensitizer, and a    
   light is shed on the patient's lesion. However, such therapies had never been   
   employed to treat neurodegenerative diseases.   
      
   Alzheimer's starts when a protein called beta-amyloid is created and deposited   
   in a patient's brain. The abnormally folded protein created this way harms the   
   brain cells by inducing the degradation of brain functions, for example,   
   dementia. If beta-   
   amyloid creation can be suppressed at an early stage, the formation of amyloid   
   deposits will stop. This could prevent Alzheimer's disease or halt its   
   progress.   
      
   The research team effectively prevented the buildup of beta-amyloids by using   
   blue LED lights and a porphyrin inducer, which is a biocompatible organic   
   compound. By absorbing light energy, a photosensitizer such as porphyrin   
   reaches the excitation state.    
   Active oxygen is created as the porphyrin returns to its ground state. The   
   active oxygen oxidizes a beta-amyloid monomer, and by combining with it,   
   disturbs its assembly.   
      
   The technique was tested on drosophilae or fruit flies, which were produced to   
   model Alzheimer on invertebrates. The research showed that symptoms of   
   Alzheimer's disease in the fruit flies such as damage on synapse and muscle,   
   neuronal apoptosis,    
   degradation in motility, and decreased longevity were alleviated. Treatments   
   with light provide additional benefits: less medication is needed than other   
   drug treatments, and there are fewer side effects. When developed,   
   photodynamic therapy will be used    
   widely for this reason.   
      
   Professor Park said, "This work has significance as it was the first case to   
   use light and photosensitizers to stop deposits of beta-amyloids. We plan to   
   carry the research further by testing compatibility with other organic and   
   inorganic    
   photosensitizers and by changing the subject of photodynamic therapy to   
   vertebrate such as mice."   
      
   Provided by: The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)   
      
      
       
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   http://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2015-11-alzheimer-disease.html   
      
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