Study: Lichen based dye may help treat Alzhemer's Disease.

The misfolding of proteins is considered by researchers to be a cause or contributing factor of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's Diseases. The proteins then accumulate into large intracellular or extracellular plaque. The assumption is made that the small accumulations that are the precursors to mature plaques are toxic for nerve cells, hence their eventual destruction. research has shown that a red dye called orcein, derived from lichens, bind preferentially to a type of theses aggregates and causes the rapid maturation of the aggregates into nontoxic mature plaques. Further research in animal models is necessary to determine whether this is useful for therapy. As orcein is composed of multiple natural compounds, a pure substance has been derived that is structurally similar to one of the molecules, named O4, that would potentially have the same effect. As opposed to the known mechanism used by Epigallocatechin-3-gallate, which renders the toxic protein assemblies nontoxic, the mechanism discovered here reduces the prevalence of the assemblies, opening the possibility of combination with preexisting therapies. Note that this is a preliminary study only, and has neither progressed to animal models nor clinical trials, or if the maturation of the plaques would indeed help treat the disease.

Source: http://www.news-medical.net/news/20111203/Dye-derived-from-Canary-Island-lichens-may-help-treat-Alzheimers-disease.aspx