The Role of TREM2 in Alzheimer's Disease and Other Neurological Disorders.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Yaghmoor F
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4317331 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
The Role of TREM2 in Alzheimer's Disease and Other Neurological Disorders.
Yaghmoor Faris F Noorsaeed Ahmed A Alsaggaf Samar S Aljohani Waleed W Scholtzova Henrieta H Boutajangout Allal A Wisniewski Thomas T
Journal of Alzheimer's disease & Parkinsonism 20141101 5
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia worldwide. Late-onset AD (LOAD), is the most common form of Alzheimer's disease, representing about >95% of cases and early-onset AD represents <5% of cases. Several risk factors have been discovered that are associated with AD, with advancing age being the most prominent. Other environmental risk factors include diabetes mellitus, level of physical activity, educational status, hypertension and head injury. The most well known genetic ri ...[more]
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Project description:Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia. The two histopathological markers of AD are amyloid plaques composed of the amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide, and neurofibrillary tangles of aggregated, abnormally hyperphosphorylated tau protein. The majority of AD cases are late-onset, after the age of 65, where a clear cause is still unknown. However, there are likely different multifactorial contributors including age, enviornment, biology and genetics which can increase risk for the disease. Genetic predisposition is considerable, with heritability estimates of 60-80%. Genetic factors such as rare variants of TREM2 (triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-2) strongly increase the risk of developing AD, confirming the role of microglia in AD pathogenesis. In the last 5 years, several studies have dissected the mechanisms by which TREM2, as well as its rare variants affect amyloid and tau pathologies and their consequences in both animal models and in human studies. In this review, we summarize increases in our understanding of the involvement of TREM2 and microglia in AD development that may open new therapeutic strategies targeting the immune system to influence AD pathogenesis.
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