Neuroscience
From a 13 June 2007 press release from the University of Pennsylvania:
Penn Researchers Link Cell’s Protein Recycling Systems
Implications for Treating Neurodegenerative Disorders
(PHILADELPHIA) – Many age-related neurological diseases are associated with defective proteins accumulating in nerve cells, suggesting that the cell’s normal disposal mechanisms are not operating correctly. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered a molecular link between the cell’s two major pathways for breaking down proteins and have succeeded in using this link to rescue neurodegenerative diseases in a simple animal model. The study appears this week in Nature.
The cell has two internal pathways for breaking down proteins. The ubiquitin-proteasome pathway marks unwanted proteins with ubiquitin tags and shuttles them for rapid breakdown to a complicated structure called the proteasome. The second is the autophagy-lysosomal system, a more general process in which proteins are surrounded by membranes inside the cell for bulk digestion.
“The dogma has been that the autophagy-lysosomal and the proteasomal systems are trains that run on different tracks, with similar purposes, but no point of intersection,” explains senior author J. Paul Taylor, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurology. “The new finding directly challenges this thinking by showing that one system can be induced to compensate for the other. Cells are able to shift proteins between the systems. We think that this molecular link can be used to benefit a wide variety of neurodegenerative diseases because accumulation of toxic proteins is a common underlying feature of age-related neurodegeneration.”
[ ... Read the full press release ... ]
- Memory: Bdnf And Micrornas
Making memories: How one protein does it The JHU Gazette 12 March 2012 [snip] "Studying tiny bits of genetic material that control protein formation in the brain, Johns Hopkins scientists say that they have new clues to how memories are made and how drugs...
- Neurodegenerative Diseases: Progranulin (pgrn) Mutation And Tdp-43
From a National Institutes of Health (NIH) press release on the 26th: Scientists Suggest New Pathway Causing Cell Death in Dementia Scientists have discovered a link between a mutated gene and a protein found in dead brain cells of people who suffer...
- Primary Progressive Aphasia (ppa)
From an NIH press release from earlier today:Study Links Progressive Aphasia Syndrome to Prion Gene Most people with a rare type of dementia called primary progressive aphasia (PPA) have a specific combination of prion gene...
- Synapse-associated Protein 97 (sap97): Pdz1
From a Brown University press release (the press release includes a graphic showing a portion of the protein):Researchers Reveal Secret of Key Protein in Brain and Heart Function 29 July 2005 Brown University researchers have solved the structure of a...
- Today's Reading: Apoptosis
Topics of increasing contemporary neuroscientific study are programmed neuron death, the messaging signals for the phenomenon, and potential ways to alter those signals in disease conditions. This review, in the September 2004 issue of Nature Reviews:...
Neuroscience
Autophagy
From a 13 June 2007 press release from the University of Pennsylvania:
Penn Researchers Link Cell’s Protein Recycling Systems
Implications for Treating Neurodegenerative Disorders
(PHILADELPHIA) – Many age-related neurological diseases are associated with defective proteins accumulating in nerve cells, suggesting that the cell’s normal disposal mechanisms are not operating correctly. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered a molecular link between the cell’s two major pathways for breaking down proteins and have succeeded in using this link to rescue neurodegenerative diseases in a simple animal model. The study appears this week in Nature.
The cell has two internal pathways for breaking down proteins. The ubiquitin-proteasome pathway marks unwanted proteins with ubiquitin tags and shuttles them for rapid breakdown to a complicated structure called the proteasome. The second is the autophagy-lysosomal system, a more general process in which proteins are surrounded by membranes inside the cell for bulk digestion.
“The dogma has been that the autophagy-lysosomal and the proteasomal systems are trains that run on different tracks, with similar purposes, but no point of intersection,” explains senior author J. Paul Taylor, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurology. “The new finding directly challenges this thinking by showing that one system can be induced to compensate for the other. Cells are able to shift proteins between the systems. We think that this molecular link can be used to benefit a wide variety of neurodegenerative diseases because accumulation of toxic proteins is a common underlying feature of age-related neurodegeneration.”
[ ... Read the full press release ... ]
- Memory: Bdnf And Micrornas
Making memories: How one protein does it The JHU Gazette 12 March 2012 [snip] "Studying tiny bits of genetic material that control protein formation in the brain, Johns Hopkins scientists say that they have new clues to how memories are made and how drugs...
- Neurodegenerative Diseases: Progranulin (pgrn) Mutation And Tdp-43
From a National Institutes of Health (NIH) press release on the 26th: Scientists Suggest New Pathway Causing Cell Death in Dementia Scientists have discovered a link between a mutated gene and a protein found in dead brain cells of people who suffer...
- Primary Progressive Aphasia (ppa)
From an NIH press release from earlier today:Study Links Progressive Aphasia Syndrome to Prion Gene Most people with a rare type of dementia called primary progressive aphasia (PPA) have a specific combination of prion gene...
- Synapse-associated Protein 97 (sap97): Pdz1
From a Brown University press release (the press release includes a graphic showing a portion of the protein):Researchers Reveal Secret of Key Protein in Brain and Heart Function 29 July 2005 Brown University researchers have solved the structure of a...
- Today's Reading: Apoptosis
Topics of increasing contemporary neuroscientific study are programmed neuron death, the messaging signals for the phenomenon, and potential ways to alter those signals in disease conditions. This review, in the September 2004 issue of Nature Reviews:...