Study sheds light on link between diseases like Alzheimer's and normal aging in the brain
Neurodegenerative diseases are often associated with protein aggregates. These are clumps of proteins created when misfolded proteins -- proteins that have lost the elaborate but recognizable shape that dictates their function -- assemble together to form a highly intractable structure. Recent research has also shown that even in the absence of disease, proteins can aggregate increasingly with age. In the case of Alzheimer's the researchers investigated whether the Amyloid beta (A?) aggregates closely associated with the disease could be induced by aging seeds: proteins that clump together with age to form aggregates. This would occur through a hypothesized phenomenon called cross-seeding, where different protein aggregates can induce each other's aggregation. Crucially, the few existing examples of cross-seeding occur between disease-associated proteins. The study's experiments on C. elegans , an organism whose limited number of cells and relative complexity makes i...