oa Screening for Novel Inhibitors of Beta Amyloid Aggregation and Toxicity as a Potential Drug for Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders in which the disruption of brain cells causes impairment of cognition. The pathology of AD is still unclear, with different etiologies leading to formation of extracellular senile plaques, intracellular neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) and ultimately neuronal death. However, several investigations showed that the amyloid hypothesis in which the accumulation of the toxic amyloid beta (Aβ) protein in the central nervous system (CNS) is the main pathology of the AD. Currently, there is no proven medication to cure or prevent the disease, however, therapeutic approaches of AD show only relief of symptoms and mostly work on cognitive recovery. Moreover, herbal phenolic compounds grant more effective therapy due to its multifacted action. Based on the previous work targeted the amyloid hypothesis in disease other than AD by using Chinese medicinal compounds, our project is aimed to investigate the activity of Ginsenoside Rb1, Dihydromyricetin and Salvianolic acid on the process of aggregation of Aβ40 and Aβ42. The effect of these compounds on the Aβ aggregation was investigated using different biochemical assays. Our results showed that Salvianolic acid and dihydromyricetin inhibit Aβ40 and Aβ42 fibrilizations. Whereas, Ginsenoside Rbi1 showed no effect on the aggregation process of both amyloids. Overall, these compounds may be considered as starting point for designing new compounds that could be used as drugs for the treatment of AD and related disorders.