http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0303134435.htm

"ScienceDaily (Mar. 3, 2011) — Unexpected results from a Scripps Research Institute and ModGene, LLC study could completely alter scientists' ideas about Alzheimer's disease -- pointing to the liver instead of the brain as the source of the "amyloid" that deposits as brain plaques associated with this devastating condition. The findings could offer a relatively simple approach for Alzheimer's prevention and treatment"


"The mice were administered imatinib (trade name Gleevec, an FDA-approved cancer drug), a relatively new drug currently approved for treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia and gastrointestinal tumors. The drug potently reduces the production of beta amyloid in neuroblastoma cells transfected by amyloid precursor protein (APP) and also in cell-free extracts prepared from the transfected cells. Importantly, Gleevec has poor penetration of the blood-brain barrier in both mice and humans.

"This characteristic of the drug is precisely why we chose to use it," Sutcliffe explained. "Because it doesn't penetrate the blood-brain barrier, we were able to focus on the production of amyloid outside of the brain and how that production might contribute to amyloid that accumulates in the brain, where it is associated with disease."

The mice were injected with Gleevec twice a day for seven days; then plasma and brain tissue were collected, and the amount of beta amyloid in the blood and brain was measured. The findings: the drug dramatically reduced beta amyloid not only in the blood, but also in the brain where the drug cannot penetrate. Thus, an appreciable portion of brain amyloid must originate outside of the brain, and imatinib represents a candidate for preventing and treating Alzheimer's."

Hopefully this will translate into the plaques for PD also !!