Teaching cells to do their own housecleaning to fight neurodegeneration and delay aging
Researchers at Monash University have discovered a process that occurs in all human cells and contributes to ageing, cancer, neurodegenerative disease and other diseases. The discovery shows how cells effectively get rid of cellular garbage, which, when it accumulates can cause death and health problems associated to getting older.
Autophagy is a cell’s ‘cleaning crew’. It’s used by cells to break down debris such as broken proteins, fragments of cell membrane, bacteria or viruses. Cells use membranes that are designed to capture the trash and recycle it into new parts or energy. Autophagy is essential for cells to be able to recycle their damaged parts.
The Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute’s Dr. Michael Lazarou’s lab published today in Nature Communications data that dispels previous beliefs about how the cells target their garbage. The ‘autophagy’ receptors that cells use to target different cargo types can both bind cargo and the membranes that ensnare it. The autophagy receptors, which were previously thought to attract the membranes onto the cargo, are now no longer the culprits. This is according to Dr. Benjamin Padman of the Lazarou laboratory.
Source:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-human-cells-house-aging-neurodegeneration.html
