Skip to main content

Aggregator

Developing nanobodies as allosteric molecular chaperones of glucocerebrosidase function

1 week ago
The enzyme glucocerebrosidase (GCase) catalyses the hydrolysis of glucosylceramide to glucose and ceramide within lysosomes. Homozygous or compound heterozygous mutations in the GCase-encoding GBA1 gene cause the lysosomal storage disorder Gaucher disease, while heterozygous and homozygous mutations are the most frequent genetic risk factor for Parkinson's disease. These mutations commonly affect GCase stability, trafficking or activity. Here, we report the development and characterization of...
Thomas Dal Maso

Genetically encoded fluorescent reporter for polyamines

1 week ago
Polyamines are abundant and evolutionarily conserved metabolites that are essential for life. Dietary polyamine supplementation extends life-span and health-span. Dysregulation of polyamine homeostasis is linked to Parkinson's disease and cancer, driving interest in therapeutically targeting this pathway. However, measuring cellular polyamine levels, which vary across cell types and states, remains challenging. We introduce a genetically encoded polyamine reporter for real-time measurement of...
Pushkal Sharma

Lemborexant ameliorates tau-mediated sleep loss and neurodegeneration in males in a mouse model of tauopathy

1 week ago
Sleep disturbances are associated with the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and primary tauopathies. Here we demonstrate that administration of the dual orexin receptor antagonist lemborexant in the P301S/E4 mouse model of tauopathy improves tau-associated impairments in sleep-wake behavior. It also protects against chronic reactive microgliosis and brain atrophy in male P301S/E4 mice by preventing abnormal phosphorylation of tau. These neuroprotective...
Samira Parhizkar

A wireless device for continuous measurement of brain parenchymal resistance tracks glymphatic function in humans

1 week ago
Glymphatic function in animal models supports the clearance of brain proteins whose mis-aggregation is implicated in neurodegenerative conditions including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The measurement of glymphatic function in the human brain has been elusive due to invasive, bespoke and poorly time-resolved existing technologies. Here we describe a non-invasive multimodal device for the continuous measurement of sleep-active changes in parenchymal resistance in humans using repeated...
Paul Dagum

Early establishment and life course stability of sex biases in the human brain transcriptome

1 week ago
To elaborate on the origins of the established male-female differences in several brain-related phenotypes, we assessed the patterns of transcriptomic sex biases in the developing and adult human forebrain. We find an abundance of sex differences in expression (sex-DEs) in the prenatal brain, driven by both hormonal and sex-chromosomal factors, and considerable consistency in the sex effects between the developing and adult brain, with little sex-DE exclusive to the adult forebrain. Sex-DE was...
Clara Benoit-Pilven

Structural plasticity of the FOXO-DBD:p53-TAD interaction

1 week ago
The transcription factors FOXO4 and p53 regulate aging, and their deregulation has been linked to several diseases, including cancer. Under stress conditions, cellular senescence is promoted by p53 sequestration and senescence-associated protein p21 transcriptional upregulation induced by interactions between the FOXO4 Forkhead DNA-binding domain and the p53 transactivation domain. However, the molecular details of these interactions remain unclear. Here, we report that these interactions...
Klara Kohoutova