Authors: F. ContaldiF. CapuanoA. FulgioneR. Aiese CiglianoW. SanseverinoD. IannelliC. Medaglia R. Capparelli

Institutions: 

  • Department of Agriculture, University of Naples “Federico II”, Portici, 80055, Italy
  • Department of Food Microbiology, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Mezzogiorno, Portici, 80055, Italy
  • Sequentia Biotech, Barcelona, Spain
  • Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel

Publication: Scientific Reports

Date: August, 2017

Full paper: The hypothesis that Helicobacter pylori predisposes to Alzheimer’s disease is biologically plausible

Abstract:

There is epidemiological evidence that H. pylori might predispose to Alzheimer’s disease. To understand the cellular processes potentially linking such unrelated events, we incubated the human gastric cells MNK-28 with the H. pylori peptide Hp(2-20). We then monitored the activated genes by global gene expression. The peptide modulated 77 genes, of which 65 are listed in the AlzBase database and include the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease: APP, APOE, PSEN1, and PSEN2. A large fraction of modulated genes (30 out of 77) belong to the inflammation pathway. Remarkably, the pathways dis-regulated in Alzheimer’s and Leasch-Nyhan diseases result dis-regulated also in this study. The unsuspected links between such different diseases – though still awaiting formal validation – suggest new directions for the study of neurological diseases.