Immunotherapeutic Approaches for Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most prevalent form of dementia worldwide and is an emerging global epidemic. It is characterized by an imbalance between production and clearance of amyloid beta (A beta) and tau proteins. Oligomeric forms of A beta and tau are believed to be the most toxic. Dramatic results from AD animal models showed great promise for active and passive immune therapies targeting A beta. However, there is very limited evidence in human studies of the clinical benefits from these approaches. Immunotherapies targeting only tau pathology have had some success but are limited so far to mouse models. The majority of current methods is based on immunological targeting of a self-protein; hence, benefits need to be balanced against risks of stimulating excessive autoimmune toxic inflammation. For greater efficacy the next generation of vaccines needs to focus more on concurrently targeting all the intermediate toxic conformers of oligomeric A beta and tau species.