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Alzheimer's Disease: New Therapeutic Strategies Opened Up with CRISPR-Cas9

Acta neurologica Belgica·April 4, 2026AI Curation
Alzheimer's Disease: New Therapeutic Strategies Opened Up with CRISPR-Cas9
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Alzheimer's disease is a progressive and multifactorial neurodegenerative disorder that is the leading cause of dementia worldwide. Currently approved treatments primarily alleviate symptoms, but do not halt or reverse neurodegeneration, making disease-modifying strategies crucial. This paper demonstrates that CRISPR-Cas9 and next-generation gene editing technologies can be utilized as innovative therapeutic platforms to precisely modulate the genetic and molecular pathways of Alzheimer's disease. Specifically, it evaluates strategies targeting genes such as APOE4, APP, PSEN1, PSEN2, and MAPT, including allele-specific correction, gene silencing, and transcriptional regulation. This research presents new strategies for treating Alzheimer's disease, with significant implications for preventing or treating the disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive and multifactorial neurodegenerative disorder and the leading cause of dementia worldwide, characterized by extracellular amyloid-β (Aβ) plaque deposition, intracellular neurofibrillary tangles composed of hyperphosphorylated tau, synaptic loss, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, and chronic neuroinflammation. Despite major advances in understanding its molecular basis, currently approved therapies remain largely symptomatic and fail to halt or reverse neurodegeneration, emphasizing the urgent need for disease-modifying strategies. In this comprehensive state-of-the-art review, we examine the rapidly evolving landscape of CRISPR-Cas9 and next-generation gene-editing technologies, including base editors and prime editors, as innovative therapeutic platforms for precisely modulating AD-associated genetic and molecular pathways. We discuss targeting of critical genes such as APOE4, APP, PSEN1, PSEN2, and MAPT, which play central roles in amyloid processing, tau pathology, lipid metabolism, and neuroinflammatory cascades, and evaluate strategies for allele-specific correction, gene silencing, and transcriptional regulation using CRISPR interference/activation and epigenome editing tools. The review further explores multiplex editing approaches that simultaneously target interconnected pathogenic networks underlying Aβ accumulation, tau hyperphosphorylation, microglial activation, and synaptic dysfunction. A central focus is placed on overcoming delivery barriers to the central nervous system, particularly the blood-brain barrier (BBB), highlighting advances in engineered adeno-associated viral vectors, lentiviral systems, lipid nanoparticles, polymeric nanocarriers, exosome-based delivery, receptor-mediated transcytosis, immune-evasive vector design, and focused ultrasound-mediated BBB modulation. The review examines the integration of bioinformatics, multi-omics profiling, and artificial intelligence-guided design to enhance the efficacy and specificity of gene editing therapies for Alzheimer's disease, as reported in Nature Medicine.

💬Why it matters:

This study is scientifically and socially significant because it presents new strategies for understanding and treating the underlying causes of Alzheimer's disease. By leveraging CRISPR-Cas9 and next-generation gene editing technologies to precisely modulate the genetic and molecular pathways of Alzheimer's disease, it may greatly contribute to preventing or treating the disease.

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