Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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Nature Communications

Amyloid vs tau? With this AD target, no need to choose

Keqiang Ye’s lab at Emory recently published a paper in Nature Communications that offers a two for one deal in Alzheimer’s drug discovery.

Periodically we hear suggestions that the amyloid hypothesis, the basis of much research on Alzheimer’s disease, is in trouble. Beta-amyloid is a toxic protein fragment that accumulates in extracellular brain plaques in Alzheimer’s, and genetics for early-onset Alzheimer’s point to a driver role for amyloid too.

In mice, inhibiting AEP hits two targets (amyloid and tau) with one shot

Unfortunately, anti-amyloid agents (either antibodies that sop up beta-amyloid or drugs that steer the body toward making less of it) have not shown clear positive effects in clinical trials.

That may be because the clinical trials started too late or the drugs weren’t dosed/delivered right, but there is a third possibility: modifying amyloid by itself is not enough.

Ye’s lab has been investigating an enzyme called AEP (asparagine endopeptidase), which he provocatively calls “delta secretase.” AEP is involved in processing both amyloid and tau, amyloid’s intracellular tangle-forming counterpart. Read more

Posted on May 16, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Neuro Leave a comment

No junk: long RNA mimics DNA, restrains hormone responses

It arises from what scientists previously described as “junk DNA” or “the dark matter of the genome,” but this gene is definitely not junk. The gene Gas5 acts as a brake on steroid hormone receptors, making it a key player in diseases such as hormone-sensitive prostate and breast cancer.

Unlike many genes scientists are familiar with, Gas5 does not encode a protein. It gets transcribed into RNA, like many other genes, but with Gas5 the RNA is what’s important, not the protein. The RNA accumulates in cells subjected to stress and soaks up steroid hormone receptors, preventing them from binding DNA and turning genes on and off.

Emory researchers have obtained a detailed picture of how the Gas5 RNA interacts with steroid hormone receptors. Their findings show how the Gas5 RNA takes the place of DNA, and give hints as to how it evolved.

The results were published Friday in Nature Communications.

Scientists used to think that much of the genome was “fly-over country”: not encoding any protein and not even accessed much by the cell’s gene-reading machinery. Recent studies have revealed that a large part of the genome is copied into lincRNAs (long intergenic noncoding RNAs), of which Gas5 is an example. Read more

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer, Immunology Leave a comment