Anne Bertolotti Part 2: Benefits of Phosphatase Inhibition for Neurodegenerative Diseases
Bertolotti’s lab has had a long time interest in understanding protein folding and the role of misfolded proteins in neurodegenerative disease. In her second talk, Bertolotti explains how her lab found that selectively inhibiting the dephosphorylation of eIF2⍺, a translation initiation factor, led to a reduction in protein synthesis. Decreasing protein synthesis allowed cells to “catch up” with the degradation of misfolded proteins that may accumulate as a result of cell stress. Her lab went on to show that a selective small molecule phosphatase inhibitor had therapeutic effects in a mouse model of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease; a disease that results from the accumulation of misfolded protein in the ER. This exciting result suggested that targeted inhibition of protein phosphatases may have therapeutic potential for neurodegenerative diseases.
View the full talk with additional resources on our website
Kinases and phosphatases perform a balancing act in cells by adding and removing phosphate groups from proteins. Dr. Bertolotti shows us that inhibiting specific protein phosphatases can reduce misfolded protein accumulation and reduce neurodegenerative disease. (Talk recorded in January 2019)
Dr. Anne Bertolotti’s research focuses on understanding and preventing the deposition of misfolded proteins in cells, a hallmark of numerous neurological diseases. Bertolotti has been a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK since 2006. Prior to joining the LMB, she was an Associate Professor at Ecole Normale Superieure in…
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