Skin cells taken from patients with Alzheimer's disease and converted into neurons exhibit molecular defects that have been linked to the neurodegenerative condition. Such cells could function as models for those working to understand the disease.

Asa Abeliovich at Columbia University in New York and his colleagues created neurons from the fibroblasts of three patients with genetic mutations that cause a rare hereditary form of Alzheimer's disease. The authors used retroviruses to introduce key genes into the skin cells, directly reprogramming them into neurons.

Compared with converted cells from healthy people, those from patients with disease-related mutations produced higher levels of a protein fragment called amyloid-β, which is linked to Alzheimer's disease. All reprogrammed neurons contained amyloid precursor protein — which is clipped to make amyloid-β — but in cells from people with Alzheimer's mutations this protein was more localized in membrane-bound sacs.

Cell 146, 359–371 (2011)