Immunotherapies for Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

Several clinical immunotherapy trials are ongoing, targeting the two major hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide, and the tau protein. Of the two, Aβ immunotherapies are more advanced as the feasibility of targeting this peptide as potential therapy was discovered several years earlier [1, 2]. Furthermore, targeting the tau protein, which is mainly found intracellularly, with antibodies was thought by many not to be possible. The purpose of this review is to give a brief overview of the current status of these two related fields with some thoughts about possible mechanisms of action, which are likely to overlap to some extent for these two related targets.