The BBVA Foundation rewards key findings in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or ALS

2024-01-24 12:03:02
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Biomedicine has been awarded to four scientists for their revolutionary discoveries that revealed the physiological mechanisms that control the functioning of proteins, a fundamental discovery both for understanding the origin of many diseases and for developing new treatments. . All the instructions needed to develop, survive and reproduce reside in the DNA of our cells. But the main ones responsible for carrying out these functions are proteins and “to fulfill their function they must adopt certain three-dimensional structures that are achieved in cells with the help of a group of proteins called chaperones,” states the jury report. The winners made two key discoveries in the field of proteins: Ulrich Hartl, from the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry (Germany), and Arthur Horwich, from Yale University (USA), revealed the cellular machinery on which the protein folding, while Kazutoshi Mori, from Kyoto University (Japan), and Peter Walter, from Altos Labs and the University of California in San Francisco (USA), identified the response mechanism that is triggered to refold or removing proteins when they do not fold properly. Related News standard No A variant of a gene protects against atherosclerosis and the risk of Alzheimer’s ABC A Spanish study discovers that genetic variants of APOE, implicated in Alzheimer’s, are also associated with the development of subclinical atherosclerosis These findings on a biological process so fundamental for life have enormous biomedical implications, since the molecular machinery that controls both protein folding and the response to failures in this mechanism is involved in the origin of multiple diseases, from cancer to neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or the aging process itself. In 1972, Christian Anfinsen received the Nobel Prize for a series of experiments that demonstrated that certain small proteins fold spontaneously inside a test tube. His work established the idea, which Hartl and Horwich would eventually disprove, that all proteins, even within cells, fold spontaneously. Aging The winners are convinced that their findings can drive the development of new effective treatments and even contribute to understanding and acting on aging. « Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s disease and possibly ALS have in common that, at a certain age, patients develop problems in their brain, with their nerve cells, due to the accumulation of misfolded proteins. In general, the probability of this happening is much higher as you get older,” explains Hartl. Hartl believes that these disorders could be combated by interfering with the production of the proteins that accumulate. In fact, he claims that significant progress has already been made in ALS and Huntington’s disease. Horwich explains that “folding assistants exist within cells that bind to misfolded proteins and, in doing so, can prevent them from being toxic to the cell or lacking any normal function.” From this perspective, he foresees that the therapeutic use of chaperones capable of recognizing these misfolded proteins “could be a way to resolve neurodegenerative conditions.” Related News 125th anniversary of the 98 standard disaster Yes A simple blood test could detect cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Raquel Peláez Furthermore, as the accumulation of misfolded proteins appears to increase with age, Hartl also believes that his findings could have implications for slowing down the aging process. “If the cell’s own machinery that prevents toxic protein aggregation could be enhanced, it could probably also be beneficial against aging more generally.” Mori, for his part, also highlights the fact that some molecules capable of mitigating errors in protein folding are already beginning to be used to combat both ALS and some liver disorders. “In the future we hope to be able to treat several chronic neurodegenerative and liver diseases,” she says. These findings also have application in cancer. Walter explains that cancer cells “have an intrinsic problem and that is that they are genomically unstable. They produce many misfolded proteins, proteins that cannot assemble correctly. “The response to misfolded proteins provides disproportionate protection to these cells, keeping them alive, even though normally this response would be programmed to self-destruct.” Therefore, it is possible that “inhibiting this response would eliminate this inadequate growth and would allow us to act on cancer cells in a very selective way in the treatment of the disease.” As Óscar Marín, professor of Neuroscience and director of the Center for Neurodevelopmental Disorders of the MRC at King’s College London, concludes: “the two discoveries recognized by the award are fundamental for the health of each cell and therefore of our body.”
#BBVA #Foundation #rewards #key #findings #Alzheimers #Parkinsons #ALS