Chapter 22 – Epigenetic Drug Discovery for Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most important neurodegenerative disorder in Western countries. Pathological phenotypes of neurodegeneration result from a combination of genomic, epigenomic, metabolic, and environmental factors, which hinders their treatment. Current FDA-approved conventional drugs are purely symptomatic but incapable to halt or, at least, delay the progression of the disease. The epigenetic approach allows the identification of key pathological targets in complex disorders that cannot be explained by conventional genetics. Many of these epigenetic targets may be detected in early asymptomatic stages of the disease. Furthermore, the reversibility and potential restoring of epigenetic aberrations, unlike genetic mutations, sited epigenetic-based therapy as a promising tool to treat those complex disorders. This chapter reviews the main potential epigenetic-based compounds that have been used for preclinical studies during the last decade and those currently submitted to clinical trials for the treatment of AD.