工程化星形胶质细胞清除阿尔茨海默病斑块

Astrocytes engineered to fight Alzheimer’s plaques Genetically altered astrocytes reduce a cardinal pathological feature of Alzheimer’s disease Jake Boles1,2 and David Gate1,2 Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains elusive to treat despite extensive knowledge of its pathological hallmarks. In AD, amyloid-b (Ab) aggregates into extracellular plaques, and this aggregation is thought to ignite a pathological cascade leading to brain inflammation, intraneuronal tau protein aggregation, and, ultimately, neuronal loss. Because Ab aggregation is a primary driver of AD pathogenesis, therapeutic strategies, including monoclonal antibodies, have focused on clearing brain Ab. Yet clinical trials of these antibodies have yielded only modest benefits, accompanied by safety concerns that limit broad clinical adoption (1–3). On page 1006 of this issue, Chen et al. …