Viral Infection Accelerates Alzheimer's...New therapeutic candidate ALT001 effectiveness confirmed
Apr 08, 2025
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A research team led by Shin Ok, a professor of convergence medicine at Korea University School of Medicine (Dr. Oh Soo-jin of Korea University Medical School and Professor Yoon Jin-ho of Dong-A University Medical School), revealed the link between viral infection and Alzheimer's disease and blocked the connection using the new drug candidate ALT001.
Alzheimer's is the most common type of dementia, and recent studies have shown that neuroinfected viruses such as HSV-1 (simple herpes virus type 1) can affect the development of degenerative brain disease. However, how HSV-1 infection accelerates degenerative brain disease has not been clearly identified.
The research team first analyzed the effect of HSV-1 infection on the function of microglia, a brain immune cell. Through a variety of experimental systems, including mouse and human-derived microglia, microglia-neurocell co-culture models, and brain organoids (artificial mini-brain models), it was confirmed that HSV-1 infection interferes with mitophagy, an intracellular cleanup process that removes damaged mitochondria, resulting in reduced mitochondrial function. In addition, it has been demonstrated that the infection can accelerate degenerative brain disease by interfering with phagocytosis, which removes amyloid aggregates, a protein mass that builds up in the brain.
Based on this, the mitophage promoter ALT001 developed by the research team showed the effect of suppressing HSV-1 infection and alleviating neuroinflammation. ALT001 normalized mitophage function in virus-infected microglia. As a result, it effectively inhibited viral proliferation while reducing the neuroinflammatory response. In addition, the effect of helping microglia to remove amyloid aggregates better was also confirmed.
Professor Shin Ok of the Convergence Medicine Class at Korea University Medical School said, "This study is significant in that it demonstrates at the molecular level that viral infection can worsen degenerative brain diseases, including Alzheimer's, and at the same time suggests new treatment strategies."In particular, investigating the effects of HSV-1 infection on mitophagy in microglia cells is a result that differentiates it from existing nerve cell-centered studies, and ALT001 can be applied to treat various viral neurological diseases in the future."
On the other hand, the results of this study were recently published in the global journal Theranostics (IF 12.4) under the title 'Pharmacological targeting of mitophages through ALT001 improves simple spore virus 1-mediated microglia inflammation and controls HSV1 infection to promote amyloid-beta phagocytosis'.
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This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
