Latest Autophagy Stories
A team of researchers, led by Carlos López-OtÃn, at Universidad de Oviedo, Spain, has identified in mice an essential role for the cellular process known as autophagy in inner ear development and balance sensing. The team hopes that these data will provide new understanding of human balance disorders, which are of increasing relevance as the elderly population expands, and possibly new therapeutic approaches.Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process by which cells consume...
The liver scarring of α1-antitrypsin (AT) deficiency, the most common genetic cause for which children undergo liver transplantation, might be reversed or prevented with a medication that has long been used to treat seizures, according to findings from Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine that will published in Science and are available online today through the Science Express website.Because the anti-seizure drug is familiar to...
A defective, mutant strain of the bacterium that causes gum disease could provide a clue to potential treatments for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and a number of other diseases. Researchers from the University of Florida College of Dentistry reported their findings May 25 at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego.Autophagy, or "self-eating," is an essential component of cellular survival and defense against invading organisms. It is how the cell...
Mutations that cause Parkinson's disease prevent cells from destroying defective mitochondria, according to a study published online May 10 in the Journal of Cell Biology.Defects in the ubiquitin ligase Parkin are linked to early-onset cases of this neurodegenerative disorder. The wild-type protein promotes the removal of impaired mitochondria by a specialized version of the autophagy pathway called mitophagy, delivering mitochondria to the lysosomes for degradation. Mitochondria are often...
Findings by Einstein researchers suggest treatment strategiesIn a step towards a possible treatment for Huntington's disease, scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have shown for the first time that the accumulation of a mutated protein may explain damaging cellular behavior in Huntington's disease. Their research is described in the April 11 online edition of Nature Neuroscience.Huntington's disease, which afflicted the folksinger Woody Guthrie, is a fatal,...
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have identified a protein called Sestrin that serves as a natural inhibitor of aging and age-related pathologies in fruit flies. They also showed that Sestrin, whose structure and biochemical function are conserved between flies and humans, is needed for regulation of a signaling pathway that is the central controller of aging and metabolism. The work, led by Michael Karin, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology...
DNA damage sensor also responds to oxidative harm outside the nucleusHOUSTON - ATM, a protein that reacts to DNA damage by ordering repairs or the suicide of the defective cell, plays a similar, previously unknown role in response to oxidative damage outside of the nucleus, researchers report this week in the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This tumor-suppressor that works in the nucleus to prevent replication of defective cells also has a second...
A team of scientists from Princeton University and The Cancer Institute of New Jersey has embarked on a major new project to unravel the secret lives of cancer cells that go dormant and self-cannibalize to survive periods of stress. The work may help produce new cancer therapies to stem changes that render cancer cells dangerous and resistant to treatment."We want to know: What role is this self-cannibalization playing in the middle of a tumor?" said team member Hilary Coller, an...
EMBO Reports selects a study by researchers at IRB Barcelona as the highlighted article of the week because of the relevance of autophagy in healthAll cells are equipped with a recycling program to collect and remove unnecessary cellular components. Autophagy sequesters and digests aged organelles, damaged proteins and other components, which, if not disintegrated and recycled, threaten cell viability. Researchers at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) led by Antonio...
It's important to finish what you start, say Jeong-Sun Ju and researchers from Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. In the December 14, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology, Ju et al. reveal how a mutant ATPase blocks autophagy partway through to cause a multi-tissue degenerative disease.Mutations in VCP, a member of the AAA ATPase family, cause inclusion body myopathy, Paget's disease of the bone, and frontotemporal dementia (IBMPFD), a rare disorder that mainly affects...
