In an experiment on worms, vitamin B12 showed benefit in slowing the disease.
- The C.Elegans worm has been used for many years in scientific work because it makes it easy to study cell biology.
- Around one million people are affected by Alzheimer’s disease in France.
- Vitamin B12 is involved in the functioning of the nervous system and in the formation of blood.
It is a common small invertebrate, but valuable for science: the worm. American researchers use it in their research on Alzheimer’s disease. In Cell reports, they tell how this animal allowed them to make a precious discovery. Jessica Tanis and her team are working on the links between diet and Alzheimer’s disease. To do this, they use verses C.elegans, when these are affected by the expression of the beta-amyloid protein, implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, they become paralyzed within 36 hours. Thus, scientists can directly observe those who are affected by the pathology.
Why observe worms?
“As humans, we have immense genetic diversity and such complex diets that it is very difficult to decipher how any dietary factor affects the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease.“, explains the director of the study. However, worms have a genetic background close to ours and react to the beta-amyloid protein, implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, as humans do. Worms have a another advantage:we can control exactly what they eat, so we can look at the molecular mechanisms at work.”
A bacterium and its vitamins involved
In one of these experiments, all the worms were confronted with the expression of the beta-amyloid protein, but one box behaved differently: the invertebrates continued to move. “The observation was made by one of my master’s students, Kirsten Kervin, says Jessica Tanis. She repeated the experiment several times and found the same results.“It took years for researchers to understand the origin of this difference: the bacteria E.coli. It allowed scientists to grow the worms, but one of the strains had higher vitamin B12 levels. “When we gave vitamin B12 to the worms that lacked it, paralysis occurred much more slowly, details the scientist. Which immediately told us that the B12 was beneficial.” They also found that worms supplemented with B12 had more energy and lower oxidative stress in their cells. In contrast, vitamin B12 had no effect on non-deficient animals. There is another limit to these benefits: the vitamin depends on an enzyme called methionine synthase, in its absence, B12 has no effect. The research team wishes to continue its work in order to determine whether this vitamin can have a protective effect on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.
.
