A cell nucleus from a normal, healthy brain is shown at left. The lamin nucleoskeleton forms the perimeter around the nucleus. By contrast, tunnel-like anomalies are evident in the nucleus of the Alzheimer’s disease-affected cell shown at right. Image courtesy of the laboratory of Bess Frost, Ph.D.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn Alzheimer\u2019s disease, brain cells die. New research shows that their death is linked to disruption of a skeleton that surrounds the nucleus of the cells, a finding that is expected to open new studies on how to prevent the earliest biological events that result in the disease.<\/p>\n
The nucleus is the control center of cells. A mesh-like scaffold called the lamin nucleoskeleton acts like a shield, surrounding and protecting it. But in Alzheimer’s, this skeleton is disordered, said Bess Frost, Ph.D., assistant professor of cellular and structural biology in the Long School of Medicine.<\/p>\n
This dysfunction can cause the death of the brain cells. The discovery first was made in a fruit fly disease model. It was confirmed in postmortem brain tissue of people who had Alzheimer\u2019s disease, whose families had donated their brains to research.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuman brain donation is a very critical part of this work,\u201d Dr. Frost said. \u201cIt was important to show that what we found in the fly is really relevant to human disease.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Frost and her colleagues at Harvard and Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital used a technique called super-resolution microscopy to analyze the fruit fly and human specimens. They found peculiar features that looked like tunnels in the lamin of Alzheimer\u2019s-affected specimens.<\/p>\n
The team also studied a fruit fly model of Huntington\u2019s disease and did not find any problems with the lamin.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, at least compared to one other neurodegenerative disease, lamin dysfunction seems to be specific to Alzheimer\u2019s disease,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The findings were published in the journal Current Biology<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A key finding in Alzheimer\u2019s disease research offers clues to possible prevention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":10243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,206],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[],"class_list":["post-9884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-university-in-motion","category-springsummer-2016"],"yoast_head":"\n
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