Pushing the boundaries of brain organoids to study Alzheimer’s disease.
Publication Year:
2023
PubMed ID:
37353408
Public Summary:
Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of dementia worldwide but curative therapies are lacking. Developing novel therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease requires suitable experimental models that recapitulate complex human brain architecture and disease progression. Stem cell-derived three-dimensional tissues known as brain organoids contain several brain cell types and can be used to study Alzheimer’s disease in a laboratory setting. In this review, we highlight the versatility and numerous applications of brain organoids to study Alzheimer’s disease.
Scientific Abstract:
Progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD) entails deterioration or aberrant function of multiple brain cell types, eventually leading to neurodegeneration and cognitive decline. Defining how complex cell-cell interactions become dysregulated in AD requires novel human cell-based in vitro platforms that could recapitulate the intricate cytoarchitecture and cell diversity of the human brain. Brain organoids (BOs) are 3D self-organizing tissues that partially resemble the human brain architecture and can recapitulate AD-relevant pathology. In this review, we highlight the versatile applications of different types of BOs to model AD pathogenesis, including amyloid-beta and tau aggregation, neuroinflammation, myelin breakdown, vascular dysfunction, and other phenotypes, as well as to accelerate therapeutic development for AD.