Gene therapy: an alternative to treat Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a neuro-degenerative disease that primarily affects the elderly, is a worldwide phenomenon. Loss of memory, cognitive decline, behavioural changes, and many other signs are used to classify it. Various hypotheses that may contribute to Alzheimer’s disease have been found during decades of survey, including tau theory, the amyloid theory, the cholinergic hypothesis, and the oxidative stress hypothesis. According to some theories, the two leading causes of AD are the accumulation of amyloid beta plaque and development of NFTs in the brain. The hippocampus and cerebral cortex are the primary sites where amyloid beta plaques gather in the body. NFT formation in the brain impairs the brain’s neurons’ potential of signalling. According to the age at which it manifests in a person, there are two subtypes of AD: ‘LOAD (Late Onset Alzheimer’s Disease)’ and ‘EOAD (Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease)’. Long-term research into AD treatment has resulted in the introduction of some medications that provided symptomatic relief to patients but did not alter the disease’s pathophysiology, like cholinesterase inhibitors, inhibitors of tau aggregation, and monoclonal antibodies to Aβ aggregation. Even though the medications did not halt the progression of AD, researchers did not discontinue their work, which lead to the introduction of gene therapy — a recently created cutting-edge method of delivering genes to target sites where they can express the intended functionalities. Viral or non-viral vectors could be used to deliver the gene, each with advantages and limitations of their own. Gene therapy is proven to be a potential disease-modifying treatment for AD. This article discusses about gene therapy, its merits and demerits and the various ways of gene delivery. Additionally, it focuses on AD as the target for treatment through gene therapy, the pathophysiology of AD, and the multiple targets for gene therapy in the treatment of AD.