The ErbB family of cell surface receptors is involved in the transduction of cellular growth and proliferation signals; ErbB-1 and ErbB-2, for example, have been implicated in aggressive forms of breast cancer...
Entire new classes of molecules don't come along every day, so it is worth noting that the classic triumvirate of RNA—mRNA, tRNA, rRNA—has just gotten a baby brother. Three independent research teams are reporting...
One hypothesis for how polyglutamine (poly-Q) repeats in the
huntingtin protein might cause disease holds that they somehow perturb gene expression.
This notion is getting more traction from a paper in yesterday's Nature...
Another theory to explain Huntington's suggests that proteolysis
of polyglutamine-expanded (poly-Q) huntingtin by caspase enzymes generates toxic
N-terminal peptide fragments...
It has become almost a truism in memory research that the
seahorse-shaped brain area called the hippocampus is key to memory formation.
It helps solidify short-term memories into more permanent ones...
Chronically elevated levels of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), which catalyzes the first step in the synthesis of prostaglandins from arachidonic acid, have been correlated with induction of neuronal apoptosis...
Mitochondria, through their pivotal roles in apoptosis and generation
of reactive oxygen species (ROS), are increasingly being implicated in the pathogenesis
of neurodegenerative diseases...
In tomorrow's Science, researchers describe how developing a new method dubbed "pharmacological knock-in" has enabled them to fill in the missing
pieces of an unusual signal transduction pathway that links changes in a neuron's membrane potential...
Researchers have suspected retroviruses to play a role in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) since the 1960s, when poliomyelitis was proposed to contribute to progression of the disease...
A new double-transgenic mouse may provide a good model for Lewy-body
diseases and offer insight into mechanisms that underlie Alzheimer's and Parkinson's
disease...
Spinocerebellar ataxia type 7 (SCA7), which causes retinal cone-rod
degeneration and eventual blindness, can be traced to the expansion of a CAG trinucloetide
repeat—from 10 to as many as 250 triplets—in the SCA7 gene...
Two very different reports suggest that testosterone may be important
in protecting neurons from Aβ, the peptide suspected of killing neurons in
Alzheimer's disease...
Tomorrow's Nature magazine carries an article on head trauma that could inform parts of Alzheimer's research, as well. Esther Shohami at Hebrew
University's Medical Faculty in Jerusalem, and colleagues there, report that an endogenous cannabinoid plays a role...
Most cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have no familial history that could help researchers home in on genetic causes. About 10 percent of cases are inherited, from which five potential ALS genes have been mapped to independent chromosome regions...