Free Republic

It’s often said that a little stress can be good for you. Now scientists have shown that the same may be true for cells, uncovering a newly-discovered mechanism that might help prevent the build-up of tangles of proteins commonly seen in dementia. A characteristic of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s—collectively known as neurodegenerative diseases—is the build-up of misfolded proteins. These proteins, such as amyloid and tau in Alzheimer’s disease, form ‘aggregates’ that can cause irreversible damage to nerve cells in the brain. Protein folding is a normal process in the body, and in healthy individuals, cells carry out a...

In a paper published in the July 11 online issue of Science Translational Medicine, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified two key regulatory proteins critical to clearing away misfolded proteins that accumulate and cause the progressive, deadly neurodegeneration of Huntington's disease (HD). The findings explain a fundamental aspect of how HD wreaks havoc within cells and provides "clear, therapeutic opportunities," said principal investigator Albert R. La Spada, MD, PhD, professor of cellular and molecular medicine, chief of the Division of Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics and associate director of the Institute for...