Nicotinamide riboside (NAD+) prevents DNA damage and shows cognitive benefits in preclinical model of Alzheimer’s disease
2018
Challenge
Current drugs for Alzheimer’s disease help mask the symptoms of Alzheimer's but do not treat the underlying disease or delay its progression. Patients need better treatments to stop or delay the cell damage that eventually leads to the worsening of symptoms.
Advance
IRP researchers led by Vilhelm Bohr, M.D., Ph.D., and Mark Mattson, Ph.D., examined how NAD+ supplementation by nicotinamide riboside affects Alzheimer’s symptoms in a novel mouse model of the disease. In mice with an impaired capacity to repair their DNA, a deficiency commonly found in the brains of human Alzheimer’s patients, giving a compound called nicotinamide riboside, which the body converts into NAD+, significantly improved cognitive and physical function, reduced DNA damage, and prevented neurological deterioration.
Impact
Having demonstrated improved learning and memory in mouse models of Alzheimer’s, nicotinamide riboside is now being tested in clinical trials around the world and could become a new intervention for the disease.
Publications
Hou Y, Lautrup S, Cordonnier S, Wang Y, Croteau DL, Zavala E, Zhang Y, Moritoh K, O'Connell JF, Baptiste BA, Stevnsner TV, Mattson MP and Bohr VA. (2018). NAD(+) supplementation normalizes key Alzheimer's features and DNA damage responses in a new AD mouse model with introduced DNA repair deficiency. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 115:E1876-E1885.
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