Search results for "PROTEIN"

2018

Drosophila melanogaster has been for over a century the model of choice of several neurobiologists to decipher the formation and development of the nervous system as well as to mirror the pathophysiological conditions of many human neurodegenerative diseases. The rare disease Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA) is not an exception. Since the isolation of the responsible gene more than two decades ago, the analysis of the fly orthologue has proven to be an excellent avenue to understand the development and progression of the disease, to unravel pivotal mechanisms underpinning the pathology and to identify genes and molecules that might well be either disease biomarkers or promising targets for therap…

Reversible Axonal Dystrophy by Calcium Modulation in Frataxin-Deficient Sensory Neurons of YG8R Mice

2017

15 Pages, 8 Figures. The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnmol.2017.00264/full#supplementary-material

Friedreich Ataxia: current state-of-the-art, and future prospects for mitochondrial-focused therapies

2021

Friedreichs Ataxia is an autosomal recessive genetic disease causing the defective gene product, frataxin. A body of literature has been focused on the attempts to counteract frataxin deficiency and the consequent iron imbalance, in order to mitigate the disease-associated prooxidant state and clinical course. The present mini review is aimed at evaluating the basic and clinical reports on the roles and the use of a set of iron chelators, antioxidants and some cofactors involved in the key mitochondrial functions. Extensive literature has focused on the protective roles of iron chelators, coenzyme Q10 and analogs, and vitamin E, altogether with varying outcomes in clinical studies. Other st…

Drosophila melanogaster Models of Friedreich's Ataxia

2018

Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA) is a rare inherited recessive disorder affecting the central and peripheral nervous systems and other extraneural organs such as the heart and pancreas. This incapacitating condition usually manifests in childhood or adolescence, exhibits an irreversible progression that confines the patient to a wheelchair, and leads to early death. FRDA is caused by a reduced level of the nuclear-encoded mitochondrial protein frataxin due to an abnormal GAA triplet repeat expansion in the first intron of the humanFXNgene.FXNis evolutionarily conserved, with orthologs in essentially all eukaryotes and some prokaryotes, leading to the development of experimental models of this dis…

DLG4-related synaptopathy: a new rare brain disorder

2021

Contains fulltext : 245031.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) PURPOSE: Postsynaptic density protein-95 (PSD-95), encoded by DLG4, regulates excitatory synaptic function in the brain. Here we present the clinical and genetic features of 53 patients (42 previously unpublished) with DLG4 variants. METHODS: The clinical and genetic information were collected through GeneMatcher collaboration. All the individuals were investigated by local clinicians and the gene variants were identified by clinical exome/genome sequencing. RESULTS: The clinical picture was predominated by early onset global developmental delay, intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, and attention deficit-hyp…

Autophagy is induced by resistance exercise in young men, but unfolded protein response is induced regardless of age.

2017

AIM Autophagy and unfolded protein response (UPR) appear to be important for skeletal muscle homoeostasis and may be altered by exercise. Our aim was to investigate the effects of resistance exercise and training on indicators of UPR and autophagy in healthy untrained young men (n = 12, 27 ± 4 years) and older men (n = 8, 61 ± 6 years) as well as in resistance-trained individuals (n = 15, 25 ± 5 years). METHODS Indicators of autophagy and UPR were investigated from the muscle biopsies after a single resistance exercise bout and after 21 weeks of resistance training. RESULTS Lipidated LC3II as an indicator of autophagosome content increased at 48 hours post-resistance exercise (P < .05) and …

Ubiquitin-Dependent And Independent Signals In Selective Autophagy.

2015

Selective autophagy regulates the abundance of specific cellular components via a specialized arsenal of factors, termed autophagy receptors, that target protein complexes, aggregates, and whole organelles into lysosomes. Autophagy receptors bind to LC3/GABARAP proteins on phagophore and autophagosome membranes, and recognize signals on cargoes to deliver them to autophagy. Ubiquitin (Ub), a well-known signal for the degradation of polypeptides in the proteasome, also plays an important role in the recognition of cargoes destined for selective autophagy. In addition, a variety of cargoes are committed to selective autophagy pathways by Ub-independent mechanisms employing protein-protein int…

On-demand autophagic network adaptations upon limited lipid availability

2020

The de novo synthesis of autophagic vesicles is strongly dependent on sufficient lipid supply. Recently, the RAB GTPase RAB18 was shown to affect autophagy by mediating fatty acid release from lipid droplets, which are lipid sources for autophagosome formation. The stable loss of RAB18 interfered with fatty acid release from the lipid reservoirs and provoked autophagy network adaptations aiming to maintain autophagic activity under lipid limiting conditions.

Progranulin overexpression in sensory neurons attenuates neuropathic pain in mice: Role of autophagy

2016

Peripheral or central nerve injury is a frequent cause of chronic pain and the mechanisms are not fully understood. Using newly generated transgenic mice we show that progranulin overexpression in sensory neurons attenuates neuropathic pain after sciatic nerve injury and accelerates nerve healing. A yeast-2-hybrid screen revealed putative interactions of progranulin with autophagy-related proteins, ATG12 and ATG4b. This was supported by colocalization and proteomic studies showing regulations of ATG13 and ATG4b and other members of the autophagy network, lysosomal proteins and proteins involved in endocytosis. The association of progranulin with the autophagic pathway was functionally confi…

Identification and Characterization of a Single High-Affinity Fatty Acid Binding Site in Human Serum Albumin.

2017

A single high-affinity fatty acid binding site in the important human transport protein serum albumin (HSA) is identified and characterized using an NBD (7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl)-C12 fatty acid. This ligand exhibits a 1:1 binding stoichiometry in its HSA complex with high site-specificity. The complex dissociation constant is determined by titration experiments as well as radioactive equilibrium dialysis. Competition experiments with the known HSA-binding drugs warfarin and ibuprofen confirm the new binding site to be different from Sudlow-sites I and II. These binding studies are extended to other albumin binders and fatty acid derivatives. Furthermore an X-ray crystal structure …