Yeast-Based Therapeutic Platforms for Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that represents a growing global health crisis. Existing treatments provide only limited symptomatic relief and fail to stop or reverse disease progression. Therapeutic peptides and proteins such as Anticalin and neprilysin (NEP) show great potential to target the underlying mechanisms of AD by binding, degrading, or preventing the aggregation of amyloid beta (Aβ) and Tau proteins. Yet, large-scale production of biologics in mammalian cell systems is costly and restricts global accessibility. Yeast-based cell factories, especially Pichia pastoris, provide a promising alternative, combining scalability, cost-effectiveness, and safety. Through synthetic biology, fermentation optimization, and protein stabilization, yeast platforms can produce therapeutic peptides at high yield and low cost. This paper discusses the pathology of AD, the therapeutic potential of peptides, strategies for expression in yeast, and the opportunities and challenges in applying microbial systems to neurodegenerative disease treatment. Future perspectives, including CRISPR-based yeast engineering, AI-assisted protein design, and novel delivery methods, are also discussed. Yeast cell factories thus offer a pathway toward affordable peptide-based treatments for AD, bridging the gap between laboratory research and clinical application.