Thiri San

• BSc (Hons) Biomedical Sciences
• Designing an in vitro assay to target complement C5 protein for single-molecule fluroresecence microscopy

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, affecting over 850,000 people in the UK and over 50 million worldwide. AD is a neurodegenerative disease leading to progressive loss of neurons, brain atrophy, and neuroinflammation and is characterized by plaque formation in the brain by oligomerization of amyloid-ß.

The project aims to target the C5 molecule for the complement system and design and optimize an in vitro assay for imaging under single-molecule fluorescence microscopy, building the foundation for creating a blood-brain barrier penetrant drug.

An in vitro assay was optimized using different concentrations of apolipoprotein E (ApoE), factor H (FH), and amyloid-ß and MATLAB analysis showed the ideal concentrations of 10-100nM for imaging under the microscope. These results were then used to image C5 with His-tag labelling with different controls and showed an increased number of spots in tracking and higher spot intensity with C5 positive controls.

Funding source: Royal Society of Chemistry 

Project supervisor: Dr Adam Wollman