mRNA quality control identified as novel drug target for Alzheimer's and related dementias:
Alzheimer's disease and similar disorders are often marked by the presence of pathological forms of proteins that cause neurons to die. Besides the amyloid beta proteins, which have received a lot of attention, there are also the tau proteins. Researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio discovered a new mechanism whereby pathological forms of tau proteins cause cell death, which they believe can be treated with drugs.
These proteins are created from messenger RNA (mRNA) that carry nonsense mutations. Clearing out these aberrant mRNAs occurs through a process called nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD). The researchers noticed that pathological tau protein buildup was associated with disruptions in the NMD process. Instead of trying to figure out how to clear out the proteins, they think they can attack the cause of the NMD disruptions.
"We are focusing on how cells clear faulty RNAs, and how this RNA quality control mechanism goes awry in disease. If these types of RNAs accumulate in a cell and are translated into proteins, bad things can happen," said senior author Bess Frost, PhD, Bartell Zachry Distinguished Professor for Research in Neurodegenerative Disorders at UT Health San Antonio.
[...] Treatments for Alzheimer's disease and other tauopathies have failed in part because they focused on clearing tau protein or another protein called amyloid beta. Amyloid beta plaques and tau tangles are classic hallmarks of Alzheimer's.
Journal Reference:
Gabrielle Zuniga, Simon Levy, Paulino Ramirez, Jasmine De Mange, Elias Gonzalez, Maria Gamez and Bess Frost, Tau-induced deficits in nonsense-mediated mRNA decay contribute to neurodegeneration, Alzheimer's & Dementia, 2022
DOI: 10.1002/alz.12653
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @03:41AM
I'll be needing something like this in about 20 years. Note to the researchers, please keep plugging!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ken_g6 on Friday April 22 2022, @04:31AM
That's interesting. This is like C strings developing '\0's in the middle of them, perhaps due to bad spots on a hard drive. So, "Throw mama, from the train, a kiss\0" could become "Throw mama, from the train\0 a kiss\0"!
NMD seems like a regular expression that matches and removes strings like this. To mix some Perl in here, "s/[a-zA-Z0-9,.;-]+\\0([a-zA-Z0-9,.;-]+\\0)+//"
Which is all well and good, unless a '\0' develops in that string. Which probably just generates a syntax error, but the failing regex means harmful strings aren't caught.
I can think of a couple of RNA-based ways to treat this. They could throw in a bunch of good regexes running on their own threads (read: strands of RNA.) If only a few locations of '\0' are harmful, there's also something called RNAi that can throw an exception on an exact match.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @04:46AM
SoylentNews Eds need this now! As well as most Soylentils, who tend older than Runaway1956, who, we know from his username is exactly 66 years old, and resides in XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. [No censorship, just residual X's, to protect RWNJs] So, there. Please be now, before Runaway forgets who he hates, and falls pray to the "grandparent" scam. Maybe he already has?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @10:20AM
...but I forgot what to say.
Seems to be happening more frequently lately.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2022, @05:01PM
Farewell Mr Pratchett. Your stories brought colour to our lives and enlightened our souls.
Sir Terry Pratchett died on my birthday some years ago. It did not have to be this way for the last few years of his life. We can do better.