The Pathogenesis Mechanism, Structure Properties, Potential Drugs and Therapeutic Nano-particles Against the Small Oligomers of Amyloid-β
: Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a devastating neurodegenerative disease affects millions of people in the world. The abnormal aggregation of amyloid b protein (Aβ) is regarded as the key event in AD onset. Meanwhile, the Aβ oligomers are believed to be the most toxic species of Aβ. Recent studies show that the Aβ dimers, which are the smallest form of Aβ oligomers, also have the neurotoxicity in the absence of other oligomers in physiological conditions. In this review we focus on the pathogenesis, structure and potential therapeutic molecules against small Aβ oligomers, as well as the nano-particles (NPs) in the treatment of AD. In this review, we firstly focus on the pathogenic mechanism of Aβ oligomers, especially the Aβ dimers. The toxicity of Aβ dimer or oligomers which attributes to the interactions with various receptors and the disruption of membrane or intracellular environments were introduced. Then the structure properties of Aβ dimers and oligomers are summarized. Although some structural information such as the secondary structure content are characterized by experimental technologies, the full detailed structures are still absent. Following that, the small molecules targeting Aβ dimers or oligomers are collected, nevertheless, all of these ligands are failed to come into the market, rising controversy of the Aβ-related “amyloid cascade hypothesis”. At last, the recent progresses about the nano-particles as the potential drugs or the drug delivery to the Aβ oligomers are present.