Cyclin Dependent Kinase 11, Neuroinflammation and Alzheimer's Disease: A Review

Aging is the main risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). With aging, inflammation has been recognized as potential trigger for starting the neurodegenerative cascade leading to neuronal death. Before Aβ and tau accumulation, evidence has put alterations of the cell cycle at the core of these processes. Still, a number of features of the cell cycle re-entry phenotype have remained elusive to the role of ectopic protein expression in the process of neuroinflammation and consequently neuronal cell death. Recently, a novel cyclin dependent kinase CDK11 has been found to be involved in astrocyte mediated inflammatory response and Alzheimer’s disease. In this review, we aim to establish the missing part of the puzzle between neuroinflammation and APP / Aβ deregulation in AD by evaluating the role of a cyclin, CDK11. CDK11 may play a vital role in cell cycle re-entry in AD neurons in an APP-dependent manner, thus presenting an intriguing novel function of the APP signaling pathway in AD.