Copper leads to protein aggregation in Parkinson's disease

Medical Xpress / Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials / ACS Chemical Neuroscience ^ | July 7, 2022 | Rainer Klose / Olena Synhaivska et al

[ConservativeMind]

Copper exposure in the environment and the protein alpha-synuclein in the human brain could play an important role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease. A team from was able to show how the protein forms into an unusual shape when exposed to large amounts of copper ions.

Researchers have now taken a closer look at the abnormal shape of these alpha-synucleins in the form of protein rings. In doing so, they were also able to visualize at the nanoscale the connection with environmental pollution by copper.

The researchers are targeting a protein that is involved in several molecular processes in the development of Parkinson's: alpha-synuclein. In affected individuals, this endogenous protein clumps together and causes nerve cells to die. The researchers suspect that copper in high concentrations interferes with these processes and accelerates the disease process.

Using atomic force microscopy, the researchers were able to observe the protein over a period of ten days as it formed individual insoluble filamentous structures before finally clumping together to form a dense network of fibrils. Based on the images, the transformation of the soluble protein into clumped fibers about 1 micrometer in length, as they occur during the progression of the disease.

If the researchers then added copper ions to the protein solution, completely different structures appeared under the microscope: Ring-shaped protein structures about 7 nanometers in size, so-called oligomers, appeared in the test tube within only a few hours. The existence of such ring-shaped oligomers and their cell-damaging effect are already known.

"On the one hand, high doses of copper seem to accelerate the aggregation process," says Peter Nirmalraj. In addition, however, this unusual ring-shaped protein structure develops relatively quickly under the influence of copper, which possibly marks the beginning of the pathological process or even triggers it.

[ConservativeMind]

It does not seem safe to supplement with any copper beyond the US RDA for people with Parkinson’s.

[ConservativeMind]

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[Texas Fossil]

Copper and zinc are antagonists, and the balance between them is an example of biological dualism.

Other elements have similar balance traits.

No, copper alone is not poison.

[packagingguy]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22246790/

N-acetylcysteine attenuates copper overload-induced oxidative injury in brain of rat

The second I saw this I thought the thiol group on n-acetylcysteine might be able to chelate copper. This was the first reference that showed up. You can buy it OTC.

By the way if you have copper pipes you might be getting too much copper. The water distiller that goes with the autoclave at work keeps getting clogged up with cupric and calcium carbonate from the pipes and the groundwater, respectively.

It’s a pain to clean that stuff out, it’s like scrubbing rocks off stainless steel.

[Myrddin]

Mark Purdey was studying the origins of CJD (Mad Cow). He discovered multiple factors. 1) organo-phosphate pesticides make the blood/brain barrier permeable. 2) CJD is found in places that have diets deficient in copper, but have available sources of strontium or manganese to substitute for the missing copper. 3) when strontium or manganese get substituted for copper, the proteins become sensitive to infrasound from large trucks or airplanes. The infrasound causes the strontium or manganese to become magnetized. The proteins carrying the magnetized strontium or manganese promote misfolding of adjacent proteins (prions). It is a catalytic action that doesn't not degrade the magnetized protein. In time, the damage promotes to spongiform transformation of the neural tissue.

The regular supplementation with zinc that most of us do to keep SARS-CoV-2 at bay has the effect of stripping out copper, so some supplementation is needed. An outward clue that you are deficient is gray hair. I've maintained my copper levels and my hair is mostly the dark brown it has been all of my lift at age 65.

[Norski]

“The water distiller that goes with the autoclave at work keeps getting clogged up with cupric and calcium carbonate from the pipes and the groundwater, respectively.

It’s a pain to clean that stuff out, it’s like scrubbing rocks off stainless steel.”

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Am familiar with this distillation phenomenon, best to do a mild citric acid rinse every use. Buildup causes element overheating.