A new high-throughput screening tool for a protein target of Alzheimer’s disease

Invention 2019-023

A new high-throughput screening tool for a protein target of Alzheimer’s disease

A high-throughput screening assay to identify inhibitors of RHBDL4, which cleaves an essential target of Alzheimer’s disease, has been designed at McGill University.

Market Need

In Alzheimer’s patients, amyloid plaques accumulate in the neuron junctions of the brain. This can lead to neural degradation and the memory loss commonly associated with the disease. These symptoms are believed to be caused by the breakdown of Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) into toxic beta-amyloid proteins, which later form the amyloid plaque clumps between neurons. Unfortunately, there is no method of stopping the amyloid plaques from forming.

Technology Summary

After the previous discovery of the ability of RHBDL4 to cleave APP, the inventors designed a unique high-throughput screen capable of identifying an efficient inhibitor for this enzyme. Due to the failures of traditional phenotype-based screens, a high-throughput substrate dependent assay was implemented. Based on in vitro and in vivo assays, RHBDL4 has also been linked to glucose metabolism regulation for certain cancers. With this unique screening tool, a strong inhibitor for RHBDL4 and other protease enzymes of the same class can be discovered and tested for therapeutic potential in Alzheimer patients.

Advantages

• There are no pharmacological inhibitors for the rhomboid protease RHBDL4
• This high-throughput screening tool overcomes the failure of phenotype-based screens

Patent Status

Background IP for Research Opportunity