Another step towards understanding Alzheimer’s disease has been taken at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Centre. Molecular biologist Gilbert Bernier, and professor of neurosciences at Université de Montréal, has discovered a new function for the BMI1 gene, which is known to inhibit brain aging.
In his laboratory, Bernier was able to establish that BMI1 was required to prevent the DNA of neurons from disorganizing in a particular way called G4 structures. This phenomenon occurs in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, but not in healthy elderly people. Thus, BMI1 would protect against Alzheimer’s by preventing, among other things, the excessive formation of G4s that disrupt the functioning of neurons.
“This discovery adds to our knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms leading to Alzheimer’s,” said Bernier. “There is still no cure for this disease, which now affects nearly one million Canadians. Any advance in the field brings hope to all these people and their families.”
