Buffering disease: How the nucleus keeps proteins in check

High RNA concentration maintains RNA-binding proteins in solution and prevents pathological aggregates

 

 

 

Many age-related diseases affect the nervous system. One prominent example of a neurodegenerative disease is Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). The brain tissue of ALS patients typically shows aggregates of so-called prion-like RNA-binding proteins. In the nucleus, these RNA-binding proteins are floating in solution, but when they are located outside of the nucleus, in the cytoplasm, they often form solid pathological aggregates. Researchers from the lab of Simon Alberti and Tony Hyman at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden wanted to investigate why these proteins never aggregate in the nucleus and what keeps them soluble there? Uncovering this mechanism may help to dissolve pathological aggregates in the cytoplasm…read more

 

Shovamayee Maharana, Jie Wang, Dimitrios K. Papadopoulos, Doris Richter, Andrey Pozniakovsky, Ina Poser, Marc Bickle, Sandra Rizk, Jordina Guillén-Boixet, Titus Franzmann, Marcus Jahnel, Lara Marrone, Young-Tae Chang, Jared Sterneckert, Pavel Tomancak, Anthony A. Hyman, Simon Alberti: RNA buffers the phase separation behavior of prion-like RNA binding proteins, Science, 12 Apr 2018

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