Molecular Mechanism Underlying Aβ Immunotherapy: Implications for the Toxic Action of Aβ Oligomers

Aβ immunotherapy brought us not only hope for but also led to greater attention to the mechanism underlying the clearance of amyloid β (Aβ), which provided fascinating insights into disease-relevant molecules such as toxic Aβ oligomers (AβOs). Accumulated lines of evidence indicate that AβOs play a causative role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), leading to a synaptic failure, which is considered a major cellular mechanism underlying the cognitive deficits in patients with mild cognitive impairment and AD. In this mini review, we focus on recent knowledge of the possible mechanisms underlying the action of the anti-Aβ antibody to clarify the toxic action of AβOs. *Corresponding author: Dr. Etsuro Matsubara, Department of Neurology, Institute of Brain Science, Hirosaki University Graduate School of Medicine, 5 Zaifu, Hirosaki, Aomori 036-8562, Japan, E-mail: [email protected] Received June 03, 2012; Accepted August 16, 2012; Published August 18, 2012 Citation: Matsubara E, Takamura A (2012) Molecular Mechanism Underlying Aβ Immunotherapy: Implications for the Toxic Action of Aβ Oligomers. J Gerontol Geriat Res S2:001. doi:10.4172/2167-7182.S2-001 Copyright: © 2012 Matsubara E, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.