Brain organoids are self-assembled three-dimensional aggregates generated from pluripotent stem cells. They offer a reproducible, optimized platform filling in the gap that traditional models for neurodegenerative diseases struggle to address. In a recent study from... Read more
Biomaterials composed of self-assembling protein building blocks are being actively explored for biomedical applications, including drug delivery, tissue engineering scaffolds, and functionalized surface coatings. Among these, spider silk has attracted particular attention due to its... Read more
Tauopathies, including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Pick’s disease, are characterized by the aggregation of tau proteins into insoluble filaments. Traditional cell-based assays modelling tau seeding often rely on mutant or truncated tau, limiting their relevance... Read more
Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s, often begin decades before clinical symptoms are observed. Early detection is crucial, but identifying disease biomarkers - like the low concentrations of α-synuclein aggregates - is incredibly challenging. In a... Read more
Aggregated α-synuclein is part of the pathology of Parkinson’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, but why these oligomeres and fibrils aggregate as part of these diseases - or how to stop it - is... Read more
Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) is widely recognized as a key genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.It is also implicated in other protein aggregation disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Lewy Body dementia. Humans express three main... Read more
HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders are observed in 30-50% of infected individuals, but they are poorly understood. A recent study published in Nature Communications uncovers a striking interaction between neurodegenerative disease-associated amyloids and HIV-1 infection. The group... Read more
Understanding how amyloid-beta (Aβ) aggregates in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is crucial for advancing diagnostics and treatment. Adam Kreutzer and their colleagues at the University of California Irvine developed a structurally defined Aβ trimer mimic, designed... Read more
Video: Astrocyte-to-astrocyte transfer of AD tau fibrils through tunneling nanotubes (TNTs). Time-lapse microscopy of Amytracker-labelled AD tau fibrils (shown in red) demonstrating direct cell-to-cell transmission between human astrocytes. Video from Online Resource 10 of Eltom,... Read more
Prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative disorders caused by the misfolding and aggregation of prion proteins (PrP). Although copper (Cu2+) imbalance has long been suspected to play a role in these conditions, a recent study by... Read more
Protein aggregation is traditionally seen as a pathological process, hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases and systemic amyloidoses. However, emerging evidence reveals that amyloid aggregation is not merely the consequence of protein misfolding; rather, cells harness reversible... Read more
Small molecules with the ability to inhibit the nucleation process and stop the aggregation of α-synuclein have immense potential to help people suffering from Parkinson's. Availability of several aSyn protein structures has now opened the... Read more
Phenylketonuria is an inherited disorder characterised by the inability to break down the amino acid L-phenylalanine (L-Phe). The disease is primarily caused by mutations in the gene that encodes phenylalanine hydroxylase and there are >1000... Read more
Neurodegenerative diseases often involve the accumulation of misfolded proteins, that cells fail to refold or degrade and that eventually form aggregates. Among these, oligomers, which are small, still-soluble aggregates, are considered the most toxic and... Read more
The 14-3-3 proteins regulate various cellular functions, including enzymatic activity and protein stability. The 14-3-3ζ isoform has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases due to its interaction with proteins like tau and α-synuclein, which form amyloid... Read more
Hydrogels can be used as a 3D scaffold for cells to grow in tissue models and biofabrication applications. Such hydrogels can be made from proteins that form amyloid fibrils. Different biological applications have distinct requirements... Read more
Researchers from the University of Florence investigated the nature of TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) cytoplasmic inclusions, which are key pathological markers in neurodegenerative diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD).... Read more
Distal myopathies are genetically heterogeneous diseases that primarily affect skeletal muscles, particularly in the hands and feet, although they can progress to other muscles. Previous research has identified more than 25 genes associated with these... Read more
Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects women more than men. However, we don’t really know why. Women tend to live longer, which may contribute to a higher incidence of AD, but other factors, such as hormonal changes... Read more
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia are associated with the aggregation of certain RNA-binding proteins that are part of stress granules, including TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43), Fused in Sarcoma (FUS) and Heterogeneous nuclear... Read more
Faulty α-synuclein (α-Syn) aggregates in cells forming toxic α-Syn oligomers and finally Lewy Bodies which are the pathological hallmark of synucleinopathies. While Lewy Bodies are relatively easy to discern in a microscope, it turns out... Read more
Parkinson's disease (PD) and Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) are both characterized by accumulation and misfolding of ɑ-synuclein (ɑ-syn). However, there are distinct differences between their pathology likely relating back to different strains of ɑ-syn aggregates.... Read more
What causes the accumulation of toxic amyloid aggregates? An article by the group of Bingwei Lu from the Department of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications might... Read more
Accumulation of abnormal tau protein in the brain has been described as pathological hallmark of a group of neurodegenerative disorders called tauopathies. The most common tauopathy is Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In AD, intracellular inclusions containing... Read more
Multiple myeloma is a complex B-cell malignancy characterised by the accumulation of malignant plasma cells. Progression of multiple myeloma is related to dysregulated inflammatiory processes; especially leucocytes and tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are central during the... Read more
Repetitive genomic regions are known to expand across generations, due to errors during their replication, and cause a series of - mainly - neurological diseases collectively called repeat expansion diseases. One of these repetitive genomic... Read more
Alpha-synuclein (α-Syn) is a presynaptic neuronal protein encoded by the SNCA gene. It is expressed heavily in the brain and regulates synaptic vesicle trafficking and subsequent neurotransmitter release. Under certain conditions, α-Syn aggregates and forms,... Read more
Tau is an intrinsically disordered protein with the key function to stabilise axonal microtubules. In several neurological disorders collectively known as Tauopathies, tau proteins form aggregates that accumulate in cells and cause neuronal damage. The... Read more
In the context of neurodegenerative diseases, large, fibrillar amyloid deposits - such as Lewy bodies, Amyloid plaques, and Neurofibrillary tangles - characterize the pathology of the disease but it has recently become evident that small,... Read more
Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is a cell envelope glycolipid produced by most gram-negative bacteria. When LPS is recognized by Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) an innate host-response to bacterial infection is triggered. To achieve a robust antibacterial response... Read more
Alpha-synuclein (α-Syn) aggregation hallmarks a group of neurodegenerative diseases known as synucleinopathies with Parkinson’s disease as its most well-known representative. The molecular mechanism behind the aggregation of α-Syn is still not completely understood. Many aggregation-prone... Read more
Infrared (IR) spectroscopy is an invaluable tool to study the biophysical properties of amyloid aggregates. Although historically used as a tool for composition analysis of chemical compounds as it measures the vibrational energy of chemical... Read more
Microglia cells play a vital role in regulating brain development, maintenance of neuronal networks, and injury repair. Their involvement in the progression of protein aggregation leading to neurodegenerative diseases is complex. While they can clear... Read more
Infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to patients developing the COVID-19 disease, which is a complex hyperinflammatory syndrome, characterised by acute respiratory distress (ARD). Aside from these severe respiratory symptoms, we now know that the virus can... Read more
Parkinson’s disease is a brain disorder that causes unintended or uncontrollable movements, such as shaking, stiffness, and difficulty with balance and coordination. Symptoms usually begin gradually and worsen over time. As the disease progresses, people... Read more
The nuclear proteome is rich in proteins which are prone to aggregate upon conformational stress. This might explain why intranuclear inclusions can often be found in neurodegenerative disorders associated with protein aggregation. Using a combination... Read more
A team of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School as well as Linköping University have used a fluorescent probe of the same type as Amytracker for multiphoton imaging of Amyloid-β deposits in... Read more
In a study, recently published in Nature, a fluorescent tracer molecule similar to Amytracker has been used to detect α-synuclein aggregates in cerebrospinal fluid from patients with synucleopathy. Interestingly, the fluorescent tracer molecule was binding... Read more
Lipopolysaccharides (LPS) from the Gram-negative cell envelope can be shed from dormant bacteria or from continual bacteria entry into the blood and serve to contribute to the chronic inflammation. The presence of highly substoichiometric amounts... Read more
Type-2 diabetes is a progressive condition marked by resistance towards the blood-sugar regulating hormone insulin. Recently, Type-2 diabetes is become recognized as an inflammatory condition which is often accompanied by cardiovascular complications. The teams around... Read more
In a new study in the Journal of visualized experiments, the team around Prof. Peter Nilsson and Prof. Per Hammarström from Linköpings University describe how luminescent conjugated oligothiophenes (LCOs) can be used with Hyperspectral Imaging... Read more
An approved method for visualization of Amyloid β (Aβ) plaques in patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease is Positron Emission Tomography (PET). This method requires a radiolabeled amyloid ligand. A frequently used molecule is Pittsburgh Compound... Read more
A team of scientists around Frederic Rousseau from Switch Laboratory at KU Leuven have designed a biologically active amyloid from a peptide sequence occurring in vascular endothelial growth factor 2 (VEGFR2). The peptide, which the... Read more
