A team at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon has discovered that nanobodies, antibody fragments about a tenth the size of conventional ones, can interfere with the various stages of Tau protein aggregation. The build-up of this protein in the brain is associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. The study was published in Communications Biology.
The discovery was unexpected. The scientists had developed the nanobodies to study S100B, a brain protein with a protective role, and realised that some of them also recognised Tau directly. Of the three nanobodies selected, one stood out and, in the cell model used, led to the complete suppression of the protein’s aggregation and spread.
The researchers stress that this is not yet a treatment: for now, the molecules are tools for studying more precisely how Tau clumps together and passes from cell to cell. The next steps include testing them on aggregates obtained from human brain tissue and in neuron models.
The work was coordinated by Cláudio M. Gomes at BioISI, with researchers from i3S at the University of Porto, the University of Lille in France and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium.
