Alzheimer's disease represents the most common form of dimentia in older people.
Research in Alzheimer's disease is focused on identifying the genes that are involved in susceptibility as well as markers that may be useful for diagnosis and treatment.
The hallmark feature of Alzheimer's is the association of amyloid plaques in the brain tissue of patients, thus the focus of resarch has been to understand the molecular pathways associated with amyloid biology to better understand the pathology of this disease.
Aß and hyperphosphorylated tau affect neurotransmission, axonal transport, signaling cascades, organelle function, and immune response in ways that lead to synaptic loss.
In addition to the genes associated with APP processing, downstream pathways including apoptosis, mitochondria, calcium signaling and cell cycle related molecules that may be implicated in the biology of Alzheimer's disease.
These genes are contained in the Alzheimer's PCR primer library along with genes that have been identified as candidates for mutation as well as genes that have been identified as biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease.