Tuesday, November 01, 2011
A team of researchers from the Petsko-Ringe and Pochapskylaboratories at Brandeis have produced and determined the structureof alpha-synuclein, a key protein associated with Parkinson’s disease.
Their findings, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS), provide information that may someday be used to produce a newkind of treatment for the incurable degenerative brain disorder.
Their findings, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS), provide information that may someday be used to produce a newkind of treatment for the incurable degenerative brain disorder.
Alpha-synuclein is found in large quantities in the brain. Its association with Parkinson’s disease has stirred curiosity since it was discovered in 1997.
“Nobody knows what it does, but there’s a lot of it,” says Pochapsky.“The question is whether the unfolded or coagulated Lewy body proteinjust represents the pathological form of something that’s normally doingsomething.”
To explore that question, the scientists wanted to find out what theform alpha-synuclein is in before it turns into Lewy body clumps,figuring that if it is possible to stabilize, the progression ofParkinson’s disease could be either slowed or reversed.
“Even if we don’t know what it is, we at least want to know in whatform alpha-synuclein protein should be under normal conditions,” saysPochapsky.
By Susan Chaityn Lebovits
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-parkinson-disease-protein.html
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-parkinson-disease-protein.html
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