New findings on aging cell.
Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), January 2012.- A group of researchers led by the Institute of biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have managed to quantify accurately the effect of the aggregation of proteins on cell aging using as a model bacterium Escherichia coli and the triggering of Alzheimer’s disease molecule. Scientists have shown that this impact cannot be predicted in advance. Aggregation of proteins is linked to numerous diseases including the neurodegenerative.
The research, published recently in the Journal of Molecular Biology, provides a very reliable system to model and quantify the effect of protein aggregation on the feasibility, the Division and the aging of cells and has implications for understanding the natural evolution of proteins. In the words of Salvador Ventura, researcher at the IBB who has led labour, should help develop computational approaches to predict the effect of aggregation on cell aging, as well as search for molecules that act as natural chaperone, a highly conserved in evolution and in human proteins, we have seen that the bacterium reducing this impact ”.
While it is widely accepted that bad folding and aggregation of proteins reduce the capacity of survival and cell reproduction, the damage had not been able be measured experimentally in a way needed to this work.
structure of the peptide trigger for Alzheimer’s disease on a background of the bacteria that have been in the research
the scientists had found in previous research that the expression of the peptide linked to Alzheimer AB42 in bacteria caused a process of protein aggregation. They have now shown that this effect is encoded in the sequence of the protein aggregate and depends on their intrinsic properties, rather than the answer that triggers in cells, thus allowing that it can be predicted with advance also have proved that the damage caused is modulated by molecular chaperone in bacteriawhich reduce the tendency to add protein and favour the survival of the cell.
In addition to the IBB and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the UAB researchers, have participated in the scientific investigation of the Biophysics unit (CSIC-UPV), the University of the Basque country, the Institute for bioengineering of Catalonia and the Barcelona international health research centre.
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Reference article
A Villar-Pique of Groot NS, Sabaté R, Acebrón SP, Celaya G, Fernà ndez-Busquets X, Muga, Ventura S. The Effect of Amyloidogenic Hannah on Bacterial Aging work with Their Intrinsic Aggregation Propensity. Journal of Molecular Biology, 2011 Dec 19. DOI 10.1016/j.jmb.2011.12.014.
