Researchers have identified an enzyme that may help protect us against the debilitating effects of certain degenerative brain diseases including Alzheimer's. ‘This study found that NMNAT2 or nicotinamide mononucleotide adenylyl transferase 2 is a key neuronal maintenance factor’ said lead researcher Hui-Chen Lu Professor at Indiana University in the US. ‘It exerts both an enzyme function to protect neurons from stress caused by over-excitation and a 'chaperone' function shown for the first time in this study to combat the misfolded proteins encountered by the brain during ageing’ Lu noted. Many neurodegenerative disorders are caused by accumulation of proteins in the
