Frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism-17 is a neurodegenerative disease characterised by pathological aggregation of the tau protein with the formation of neurofibrillary tangles and subsequent neuronal death. The inherited form of frontotemporal dementia can be caused by mutations in several genes, including the MAPT gene on chromosome 17, which encodes the tau protein. As there are currently no medically approved treatments for frontotemporal dementia, there is an urgent need for research using in vitro cell models to understand the molecular genetic mechanisms that lead to the development of the disease, to identify targets for therapeutic intervention and to test potential drugs to prevent neuronal death.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe clinical significance of numerous cardiovascular gene variants remains to be determined. CRISPR/Cas9 allows for the introduction and/or correction of a certain variant in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The resulting isogenic iPSC lines can be differentiated into cardiomyocytes and used as a platform to assess the pathogenicity of the variant.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFamilial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is a systemic autoinflammatory disorder caused by inherited mutations in the (Mediterranean FeVer) gene, located on chromosome 16 (16p13.3) and encoding the pyrin protein. Despite the existing data on mutations, the exact mechanism of their effect on the development of the pathological processes leading to the spontaneous and recurrent autoinflammatory attacks observed in FMF, remains unclear.
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