An assay that combines enzymatic reactions with a fluorescent sensor could help discover new Alzheimer’s disease drugs.
Acetylcholinesterase is an enzyme involved in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Werner Nau and Yu Liu and their teams hope that their tandem assay could be used to search for new acetylcholinesterase inhibitors as potential drugs.
The simple, fluorescence based, tandem assay can measure micromolar concentrations of choline and acetylcholine or screen for enzyme inhibitors. The change in fluorescence is easy to detect, making the assay suitable for large scale screening.
Reference:
Operational calixarene-based fluorescent sensing systems for choline and acetylcholine and their application to enzymatic reactions
D-S Guo, V D Uzunova, X Su, Y Liu and W M Nau, Chem. Sci., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/c1sc00231g
