{"id":225964,"date":"2025-11-26T17:08:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T23:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/how-antibody-therapy-clears-alzheimers-plaques-key-immune-mechanism-identified"},"modified":"2025-11-26T17:08:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T23:08:57","slug":"how-antibody-therapy-clears-alzheimers-plaques-key-immune-mechanism-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/how-antibody-therapy-clears-alzheimers-plaques-key-immune-mechanism-identified","title":{"rendered":"How antibody therapy clears Alzheimer\u2019s plaques: Key immune mechanism identified"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/how-antibody-therapy-clears-alzheimers-plaques-key-immune-mechanism-identified.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Lecanemab, sold under the name Leqembi, is a monoclonal antibody therapy for Alzheimer\u2019s disease that clears toxic amyloid plaques and delays cognitive decline. Researchers from VIB and KU Leuven have now demonstrated the mechanism behind it for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>They showed that the \u201cFc fragment\u201d of this monoclonal antibody is essential for engaging microglia\u2014the immune cells of the brain\u2014thus initiating the cellular machinery needed for plaque removal. This is the first direct mechanistic explanation for how this class of therapies works. It clarifies uncertainties in the field and offers a blueprint for developing safer, more effective Alzheimer\u2019s treatments. The findings are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41593-025-02125-8\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in Nature Neuroscience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur study is the first to clearly demonstrate how this anti-amyloid antibody therapy works in Alzheimer\u2019s disease. We show that the therapy\u2019s efficacy relies on the antibody\u2019s Fc fragment, which activates microglia to effectively clear amyloid plaques,\u201d says Dr. Giulia Albertini, co-first author of the study. \u201cThe Fc fragment works as an anchor that microglia latch onto when they are near plaques, as a consequence of which these cells are reprogrammed to clear plaques more efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lecanemab, sold under the name Leqembi, is a monoclonal antibody therapy for Alzheimer\u2019s disease that clears toxic amyloid plaques and delays cognitive decline. Researchers from VIB and KU Leuven have now demonstrated the mechanism behind it for the first time. They showed that the \u201cFc fragment\u201d of this monoclonal antibody is essential for engaging microglia\u2014the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}