The two characteristic pathological features of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) found in the brain are extracellular amyloid plaques and intraneuronal fibrillary tangles, the former being composed primarily of the 4-kDa amyloid β-peptide (Aβ) and the latter containing paired helical filaments of the microtubule-associated protein tau (Hardy, Duff, Hardy, Perez-Tur, & Hutton, 1998). While dominant mutations in the tau gene can cause other forms of dementia (Lee, Goedert, & Trojanowski, 2001), missense mutations in the Aβ precursor protein (APP) alter Aβ production and cause familial early onset AD (Selkoe, 2001).
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Wolfe, M.S. (2007). γ-Secretase as a Target for Alzheimer's Disease. In: Pharmacological Mechanisms in Alzheimer's Therapeutics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71522-3_8
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