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Alzheimer disease

Alzheimer disease protection from the periphery

The apolipoprotein E ε3 Christchurch variant provides remarkable resilience against Alzheimer disease by limiting tau propagation and suppressing neuroinflammation. New research reveals that this protection extends to the periphery, where ‘lipid-loaded’ extracellular vesicles stabilize the blood–brain barrier, which offers a novel systemic mechanism for developing potent disease-modifying therapies.

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Fig. 1: Peripheral protection against Alzheimer disease by plasma APOE3Ch extracellular vesicles.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

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Correspondence to Guojun Bu.

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G.B. is the editor-in-chief of Molecular Neurodegeneration and Molecular Neurodegeneration Advances, an associate editor for Science Advances, and is on the editorial board for Neuron. K.W. declares no competing interests.

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Wang, K., Bu, G. Alzheimer disease protection from the periphery. Nat Rev Neurol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-026-01211-0

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