Skin Mirrors Brain: A Chance for Alzheimer's Disease Research

The accessibility of skin and the easy isolation of its cells and matrix components provide a valuable tool for studying the molecular factors involved in human aging. Moreover, increasing evidence corroborates the use of the skin as a model for age-associated pathological conditions in the entire body. Apparently based on the fact that the nervous system and skin share a common ectodermal origin, certain genes and molecular pathways associated with the pathomechanism of neurodegenerative diseases modify their expression with progressing skin aging. Alzheimer's disease and intrinsic skin aging share a common signalling pathway with major genes been regulated in both tissues. In our studies, functional neuronal cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells originating from normal human skin fibroblasts of patients with sporadic Alzheimer's disease expressed proteins, which are implicated in Alzheimer's disease pathophysiology. Cumulative data lead to valuable insights regarding the understanding of Alzheimer's disease and its pathogenesis, given that these innovative patient cell models display the Alzheimer's disease phenotype.