Ancient worm reveals way to destroy toxic cells in Huntington's disease
Associate Professor Roger Pocock, from the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI), and colleagues from the University of Cambridge led by Professor David Rubinsztein, found that microRNAs are important in controlling protein aggregates, proteins that have amassed due to a malfunction in the process of 'folding' that determines their shape.
[...] MicroRNAs, short strands of genetic material, are tiny but powerful molecules that regulate many different genes simultaneously. The scientists sought to identify particular microRNAs that are important for regulating protein aggregates and homed in on miR-1, which is found in low levels in patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease.
"The sequence of miR-1 is 100 per cent conserved; it's the same sequence in the Caenorhabditis elegans worm as in humans even though they are separated by 600 million years of evolution," Associate Professor Pocock said.
"We deleted miR-1 in the worm and looked at the effect in a preclinical model of Huntington's and found that when you don't have this microRNA there's more aggregation," he said. "This suggested miR-1 was important to remove Huntington's aggregates."
[...] "When you don't have miR-1, autophagy doesn't work correctly and you have aggregation of these Huntington's proteins in worms," Associate Professor Pocock said.
Professor Rubinsztein then conducted research which showed that the same microRNA regulates a related pathway to control autophagy in human cells.
"Expressing more miR-1 removes Huntington's aggregates in human cells," Associate Professor Pocock said.
Explore further
Interferon-β-induced miR-1 alleviates toxic protein accumulation by controlling autophagy, eLife (DOI: 10.7554/eLife.49930)
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @09:46AM (4 children)
I can't imagine any reason this story would be of more interest than any of thousands of other papers that got published recently. Why are we seeing it?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @01:45PM (3 children)
Sorry I disagree. I think it is a very interesting article. I'm interested in science, especially medicine and biology.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @05:09PM (2 children)
Well I have a PhD in that and can tell you there is nothing particularly interesting to see here. It makes zero sense that this one gets press coverage over any other.
1) Was there independent direct replication of a result that is consistent with the a priori prediction of a theory?
2) Do they come up with a theory that makes a surprising prediction?
3) Did they develop a revolutionary new tool?
No, it is just a run of the mill pilot study where they knocked out a gene and then saw something became more or less on average vs control.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @05:25PM (1 child)
So, how about *you*, oh knowledgable one, do a single submission a month of a story that *is* worth running?
You know, it's not like you couldn't influence the frontpage by trivial means ... don't complain, make it better!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @06:08PM
Interesting medical research comes out about once a decade, not once per month.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @12:01PM
We do have our own ancient worm, right here on Soylent. Say "Hello", Aristarchus!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:16AM
... vut stayed for the sick aristerchus burns