Progress Towards Therapies for Transthyretin Amyloidosis

Transthyretin is one of the few proteins in the body that can misfold in a way that encourages other copies of the protein to also misfold, forming solid aggregates called amyloid that disrupt tissue structure and function. The resulting condition, transthyretin amyloidosis, clogs up cardiac tissue and thereby contributes to a fraction of all heart failure cases. It is thought to be a major cause of mortality in supercentenarians. Approved therapies targeting a more aggressive form of the condition resulting from a mutated transthyretin gene will not be useful against the much more common version of the condition, as they target the mutated form of the protein. New therapies in development might prove to be useful, however. Everyone accumulates at least some degree of this amyloid in old age, so it is a part of the field worth keeping an eye on. While medical science has prodigiously slashed death from atherosclerosis, very little progress has been made against other kinds of "heart disease." Deaths from pulmonary heart disease, heart valve disease, and notably disordered heartbeat (arrhythmia) have remained at the same stubborn levels for decades. Worse yet: after years of making at least incremental progress against heart failure and hypertensive heart disease, the number of people suffering from these degenerative heart conditions is now rising again. In the face of this rising threat, the really good news at the center of this post is that the biotech company Neu...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs