Blood-Brain-Barrier Models for the Investigation of Transporter- and Receptor-Mediated Amyloid-β Clearance in Alzheimers Disease

2010

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia in the elderly with more than 26 million people worldwide living with the disease. Besides the main neuropathological hallmarks of AD, provoked by the accumulation of amyloid-β (Aβ) and tau hyperphosphorylation, other cells and cellular systems such as microglia and the neurovascular unit establishing the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) have been implicated to play a role in AD etiopathology. Insulating the brain from the blood stream, the BBB facilitates supply and disposal of nutrients and metabolites by the expression of transporters and transcytotic receptors at the polarized endothelial cell (EC) surface. Recently, several proteins…