The Spectrum of Genetic Risk in Alzheimer Disease.

Alzheimer disease (AD), the most common dementing syndrome in the United States, is currently established by the presence of amyloid-β and tau protein biomarkers in the setting of clinical cognitive impairment. These straightforward diagnostic parameters belie an immense complexity of genetic architecture underlying risk and presentation in AD. In this review, we provide a focused overview of the current state of AD genetics.

Olfactory Dysfunction in Huntington's Disease.

Olfactory dysfunction is a common symptom in patients with neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington's disease (HD). Understanding its pathophysiology is important in establishing a preventive and therapeutic plan. In this literature review, we cover the physiology of olfaction, its role in neurodegeneration, and its characteristics in patients with HD.

Regulation of longevity by depolarization-induced activation of PLC-β-IPR signaling in neurons.

Mitochondrial ATP production is a well-known regulator of neuronal excitability. The reciprocal influence of plasma-membrane potential on ATP production, however, remains poorly understood. Here, we describe a mechanism by which depolarized neurons elevate the somatic ATP/ADP ratio in glutamatergic neurons.

Irritability in Huntington's Disease.

Huntington's disease (HD) is a heritable and fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by a triad of motor, cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms. A common and particularly detrimental neuropsychiatric alteration in HD gene carriers is irritability, which frequently manifests as abrupt and unpredictable outbursts of anger. This symptom increases the burden of HD in multiple ways, such as jeopardizing employment and straining familial or caregiver support.

Roles for the Endoplasmic Reticulum in Regulation of Neuronal Calcium Homeostasis.

By influencing Ca homeostasis in spatially and architecturally distinct neuronal compartments, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) illustrates the notion that form and function are intimately related. The contribution of ER to neuronal Ca homeostasis is attributed to the organelle being the largest reservoir of intracellular Ca and having a high density of Ca channels and transporters. As such, ER Ca has incontrovertible roles in the regulation of axodendritic growth and morphology, synaptic vesicle release, and neural activity dependent gene expression, synaptic plasticity, and mitochondrial bioenergetics.

HRAS-driven cancer cells are vulnerable to TRPML1 inhibition.

By serving as intermediaries between cellular metabolism and the bioenergetic demands of proliferation, endolysosomes allow cancer cells to thrive under normally detrimental conditions. Here, we show that an endolysosomal TRP channel, TRPML1, is necessary for the proliferation of cancer cells that bear activating mutations in Expression of , which encodes TRPML1, is significantly elevated in -positive tumors and inversely correlated with patient prognosis. Concordantly, knockdown or TRPML1 inhibition selectively reduces the proliferation of cancer cells that express oncogenic, but not wild-type, Mechanistically, TRPML1 maintains oncogenic HRAS in signaling-competent nanoclusters at the plasma membrane by mediating cholesterol de-esterification and transport.

The reduction rates of DEPC-modified mutant Thermus thermophilus Rieske proteins differ when there is a negative charge proximal to the cluster.

Rieske and Rieske-type proteins are electron transport proteins involved in key biological processes such as respiration, photosynthesis, and detoxification. They have a [2Fe-2S] cluster ligated by two cysteines and two histidines. A series of mutations, L135E, L135R, L135A, and Y158F, of the Rieske protein from Thermus thermophilus has been produced which probe the effects of the neighboring residues, in the second sphere, on the dynamics of cluster reduction and the reactivity of the ligating histidines.