New tool to tackle Alzheimer's disease: amyloid-β protofibril-selective antibody AbSL: An Editorial Highlight for ‘The conformational epitope for a new Aβ42 protofibril-selective antibody partially overlaps with the peptide N-terminal region’ on page 736

This Editorial highlights a study by Colvin et al. (2017) in the current issue of Journal of Neurochemistry, in which the authors describe the development and characterisation of a new rabbit antibody (termed antibody St. Louis; AbSL) that preferentially recognizes amyloid-β (Aβ) protein 42 (Aβ42) protofibrils over other Aβ species. Two antisera were raised against isolated Aβ42 protofibrils,
which had similar immunochemical characteristics. In an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), the AbSL antibody displayed stronger reactivity with protofibrils than with monomers or fibrils and higher affinity to Aβ42 than to Aβ40. AbSL shoved very low reactivity with amyloid precursor protein (APP) in immunoblots of brain samples. Sandwich and competition ELISAs indicated that the main epitope recognised by the AbSL antibody included the N-terminal region of Aβ42 protofibrils. The new conformation specific antibody to Aβ42 protofibrils have research, diagnostic and potentially therapeutic applications in Alzheimer’s disease.