Experimental Antibodies for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's May Cause Harmful Inflammation

A study by Scripps Research scientists published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests experimental antibody treatments for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's could unintentionally cause brain inflammation, reports EurekAlert . The Parkinson's therapy targets abnormal clumps of alpha-synuclein, while experimental treatments for Alzheimer's concentrate on clumps of amyloid beta protein. Scripps Research's Stuart Lipton said that virtually all prior studies on experimental antibody treatments were conducted with mouse microglia, whereas the key experiments in the new study involved human-derived microglia. "We see this inflammation in human microglia, but not in mouse microglia, and thus this massive inflammatory effect may have been overlooked in the past," he explained. Lipton warned that the type of microglial inflammation observed could conceivably offset any benefit of antibody treatment without being clinically obvious. The researchers have developed an experimental drug that may be able to counter this inflammation and restore any benefit of antibody therapy in the human brain.