Mirror-Image Phage Display for the Selection of D-Amino Acid Peptide Ligands as Potential Therapeutics.

In neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease (AD), endogenous proteins or peptides aggregate with themselves. These proteins may lose their function or aggregates and/or oligomers can obtain toxicity, causing injury or death to cells. Aggregation of two major proteins characterizes AD.

Open-Label Placebo Administration Decreases Pain in Elderly Patients With Symptomatic Knee Osteoarthritis - A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Recent studies indicate that the administration of open-label placebos (OLP) can improve symptoms in various medical conditions. The primary aim of this 3-week randomized controlled trial was to examine the effects of OLP treatments on pain, functional disability, and mobility in patients with arthritic knee pain.

Methods: Sixty patients (55% females; mean age, 66.

Tau Aggregation Inhibiting Peptides as Potential Therapeutics for Alzheimer Disease.

Alzheimer disease (AD) is the most common progressive neurodegenerative disorder. AD causes enormous personal and economic burden to society as currently only limited palliative therapeutic options are available. The pathological hallmarks of the disease are extracellular plaques, composed of fibrillar amyloid-β (Aβ), and neurofibrillary tangles inside neurons, composed of Tau protein.

A novel D-amino acid peptide with therapeutic potential (ISAD1) inhibits aggregation of neurotoxic disease-relevant mutant Tau and prevents Tau toxicity in vitro.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that mainly affects older adults. One of the pathological hallmarks of AD is abnormally aggregated Tau protein that forms fibrillar deposits in the brain. In AD, Tau pathology correlates strongly with clinical symptoms, cognitive dysfunction, and neuronal death.

Potent Tau Aggregation Inhibitor D-Peptides Selected against Tau-Repeat 2 Using Mirror Image Phage Display.

Alzheimer's disease and other Tauopathies are associated with neurofibrillary tangles composed of Tau protein, as well as toxic Tau oligomers. Therefore, inhibitors of pathological Tau aggregation are potentially useful candidates for future therapies targeting Tauopathies. Two hexapeptides within Tau, designated PHF6* (275-VQIINK-280) and PHF6 (306-VQIVYK-311), are known to promote Tau aggregation.

Selection and Characterization of Tau Binding ᴅ-Enantiomeric Peptides with Potential for Therapy of Alzheimer Disease.

A variety of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer disease (AD), are associated with neurofibrillary tangles composed of the tau protein, as well as toxic tau oligomers. Inhibitors of pathological tau aggregation, interrupting tau self-assembly, might be useful for the development of therapeutics. Employing mirror image phage display with a large peptide library (over 109 different peptides), we have identified tau fibril binding peptides consisting of d-enantiomeric amino acids.

Correction: Competitive Mirror Image Phage Display Derived Peptide Modulates Amyloid Beta Aggregation and Toxicity.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Methods for the Specific Detection and Quantitation of Amyloid-β Oligomers in Cerebrospinal Fluid.

Protein misfolding and aggregation are fundamental features of the majority of neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease, frontotemporal dementia, and prion diseases. Proteinaceous deposits in the brain of the patient, e.g.

Optimization of the All-D Peptide D3 for Aβ Oligomer Elimination.

The aggregation of amyloid-β (Aβ) is postulated to be the crucial event in Alzheimer's disease (AD). In particular, small neurotoxic Aβ oligomers are considered to be responsible for the development and progression of AD. Therefore, elimination of thesis oligomers represents a potential causal therapy of AD.

Competitive Mirror Image Phage Display Derived Peptide Modulates Amyloid Beta Aggregation and Toxicity.

Alzheimer´s disease is the most prominent type of dementia and currently no causative treatment is available. According to recent studies, oligomeric species of the amyloid beta (Aβ) peptide appear to be the most toxic Aβ assemblies. Aβ monomers, however, may be not toxic per se and may even have a neuroprotective role.

QIAD assay for quantitating a compound's efficacy in elimination of toxic Aβ oligomers.

Strong evidence exists for a central role of amyloid β-protein (Aβ) oligomers in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. We have developed a fast, reliable and robust in vitro assay, termed QIAD, to quantify the effect of any compound on the Aβ aggregate size distribution. Applying QIAD, we studied the effect of homotaurine, scyllo-inositol, EGCG, the benzofuran derivative KMS88009, ZAβ3W, the D-enantiomeric peptide D3 and its tandem version D3D3 on Aβ aggregation.

Tailoring the antibody response to aggregated Aß using novel Alzheimer-vaccines.

Recent evidence suggests Alzheimer-Disease (AD) to be driven by aggregated Aß. Capitalizing on the mechanism of molecular mimicry and applying several selection layers, we screened peptide libraries for moieties inducing antibodies selectively reacting with Aß-aggregates. The technology identified a pool of peptide candidates; two, AFFITOPES AD01 and AD02, were assessed as vaccination antigens and compared to Aβ1-6, the targeted epitope.

The D-amino acid peptide D3 reduces amyloid fibril boosted HIV-1 infectivity.

Background: Amyloid fibrils such as Semen-Derived Enhancer of Viral Infection (SEVI) or amyloid-β-peptide (Aβ) enhance HIV-1 attachment and entry. Inhibitors destroying or converting those fibrils into non-amyloidogenic aggregates effectively reduce viral infectivity. Thus, they seem to be suitable as therapeutic drugs expanding the current HIV-intervening repertoire of antiretroviral compounds.

Characterization of a single-chain variable fragment recognizing a linear epitope of aβ: a biotechnical tool for studies on Alzheimer's disease?

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder with devastating effects. Currently, therapeutic options are limited to symptomatic treatment. For more than a decade, research focused on immunotherapy for the causal treatment of AD.

The amyloid-β oligomer count in cerebrospinal fluid is a biomarker for Alzheimer's disease.

Recent studies indicate that small amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) oligomers are the major toxic species responsible for development and progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Therefore, we suggest that the number of Aβ oligomers in body fluids is the most direct and relevant biomarker for AD. Determination of the Aβ oligomer content of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from 14 AD patients and 12 age-matched controls revealed a clear distinction between both groups.

Treatment with D3 removes amyloid deposits, reduces inflammation, and improves cognition in aged AβPP/PS1 double transgenic mice.

One of the characteristic pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is neuritic plaques. The sequence of events leading to deposition of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides in plaques is not clear. Here we investigate the effects of D3, an Aβ oligomer directed D-enantiomeric peptide that was obtained from a mirror image phage display selection against monomeric or small oligomeric forms of Aβ42, on Aβ deposition in aged AβPP/PS1 double transgenic AD-model mice.

Structural analysis of the pyroglutamate-modified isoform of the Alzheimer's disease-related amyloid-β using NMR spectroscopy.

The aggregation of the Aβ plays a fundamental role in the pathology of AD. Recently, N-terminally modified Aβ species, pE-Aβ, have been described as major constituents of Aβ deposits in the brains of AD patients. pE-Aβ has an increased aggregation propensity and shows increased toxicity compared with Aβ1-40 and Aβ1-42.

Development of a small D-enantiomeric Alzheimer's amyloid-β binding peptide ligand for future in vivo imaging applications.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating disease affecting predominantly the aging population. One of the characteristic pathological hallmarks of AD are neuritic plaques, consisting of amyloid-β peptide (Aβ). While there has been some advancement in diagnostic classification of AD patients according to their clinical severity, no fully reliable method for pre-symptomatic diagnosis of AD is available.

Mirror image phage display--generating stable therapeutically and diagnostically active peptides with biotechnological means.

Peptides are attracting increasing attention as therapeutics. D-enantiomeric peptides are remarkably resistant to in vivo proteolysis and elicit low immunogenic responses when compared with the respective L-peptides. Therefore, D-peptides can serve as therapeutic and early diagnosis agents for drug development.

Identification and characterization of an aβ oligomer precipitating peptide that may be useful to explore gene therapeutic approaches to Alzheimer disease.

A key feature of Alzheimer disease (AD) is the pathologic self-association of the amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide, leading to the formation of diffusible toxic Aβ oligomers and extracellular amyloid plaques. Next to extracellular Aβ, intraneuronal Aβ has important pathological functions in AD. Agents that specifically interfere with the oligomerization processes either outside or inside of neurons are highly desired for the elucidation of the pathologic mechanisms of AD and might even pave the way for new AD gene therapeutic approaches.

A synthetic amino acid substitution of Tyr10 in Aβ peptide sequence yields a dominant negative variant in amyloidogenesis.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in elderly people, and age is the major nongenetic risk factor for sporadic AD. A hallmark of AD is the accumulation of amyloid in the brain, which is composed mainly of the amyloid beta-peptide (Aβ) in the form of oligomers and fibrils. However, how aging induces Aβ aggregation is not yet fully determined.

Peptides for therapy and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder with devastating effects. The greatest risk factor to develop AD is age. Today, only symptomatic therapies are available.

Detection of Soluble Amyloid-β Oligomers and Insoluble High-Molecular-Weight Particles in CSF: Development of Methods with Potential for Diagnosis and Therapy Monitoring of Alzheimer's Disease.

The diagnosis of probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) can be established premortem based on clinical criteria like neuropsychological tests. Post mortem, specific neuropathological changes like amyloid plaques define AD. However, the standard criteria based on medical history and mental status examinations do not take into account the long preclinical features of the disease, and a biomarker for improved diagnosis of AD is urgently needed.

Competitively selected protein ligands pay their increase in specificity by a decrease in affinity.

Protein-ligand interactions characterise and govern the current state and fate of a living cell. The specificity of proteins is mainly determined by the relative affinities to each potential ligand. To investigate the consequences and potentials of ligands with increased specificity in comparison with ligands optimised solely for affinity, it was necessary to identify ligands that are optimised towards specificity instead of a barely optimised affinity to a given target.

Single-particle detection system for Abeta aggregates: adaptation of surface-fluorescence intensity distribution analysis to laser scanning microscopy.

Today, Alzheimer disease (AD) can be diagnosed with certainty only post mortem. A biomarker method for early diagnosis of AD is urgently needed. Abeta aggregates are directly involved in AD progression and therefore might be useful as biomarker in body fluids.