Shining a light on autophagy in neurodegenerative diseases.

J Biol Chem

Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA; Purdue Institute for Integrative Neuroscience, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. Electronic address:

Published: January 2022

Small-molecule modulators of autophagy have been widely investigated as potential therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. In a recent issue of JBC, Safren et al. described a novel assay that uses a photoconvertible fusion protein to identify compounds that alter autophagic flux. Autophagy inducers identified using this assay were found to either alleviate or exacerbate neurotoxicity in different cellular models of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, challenging the notion that autophagy stimulation can be used as a one-size-fits-all therapy for neurodegenerative disease.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8718947PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbc.2021.101437DOI Listing

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