Sarasa M
Laboratorio de Neurobiología, Universidad de Zaragoza, Facultad de Veterinaria, Zaragoza, Spain.
Rev Neurol. 2006;42(5):297-301.
Current animal models for Alzheimer's research include transgenic mice that express a mutant form of human beta-amyloid precursor protein (APP). However, the mutant mice with the human APP transgene also have their own endogenous APP gene, which may interfere with APP processing to generate beta-amyloid peptide.
By genetic and immunochemical analyses, our laboratory has discovered that there are animals in the nature, the chick embryo and the dog in particular, which may be better experimental models than the transgenic mice, because they contain the same machinery as humans to process APP and they are easier to access, manipulate or explore their neurology. These species may be natural experimental models to study the cell biology of Alzheimer's APP and potential assay systems for drugs used to regulate beta-amyloid production as well as for the assay of new therapeutic strategies against so devasting disease.
目前用于阿尔茨海默病研究的动物模型包括表达人β-淀粉样前体蛋白（APP）突变形式的转基因小鼠。然而，携带人APP转基因的突变小鼠也有其自身的内源性APP基因，这可能会干扰APP加工以产生β-淀粉样肽。
通过基因和免疫化学分析，我们实验室发现自然界中存在一些动物，特别是鸡胚和狗，它们可能是比转基因小鼠更好的实验模型，因为它们具有与人类相同的加工APP的机制，并且更容易获取、操作或探究其神经学。这些物种可能是研究阿尔茨海默病APP细胞生物学的天然实验模型，以及用于调节β-淀粉样蛋白产生的药物的潜在检测系统，也是针对这种极具破坏性疾病的新治疗策略的检测方法。
