Medical Dye Slows Ageing and Alzheimer’s
A common medical dye that is used to identify the tangles of proteins that accompany ageing also helps to prevent protein misfolding, which is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. When researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California grew the soil-dwelling nematode Caenorhabditis elegans in agar plates soaked in thioflavin T- a dye used to visualize clusters of amyloid beta protein-they found that the worms lived 30 to 70% longer than average.
Further investigation suggested that by binding to amyloid beta, the dye helps to preserve the environment that the proteins need to form complex three-dimensional shapes. This may prevent the misfolding that occurs with ageing, and which can lead to the formation of protein clumps seen in Alzheimer's disease. The researchers concluded that scientists need to pursue compounds that target aggregation processes and protein misfolding pathways.
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