Lysosomes News and Research

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Exercise hormone irisin blocks Parkinson's-associated α-synuclein aggregation and related neuronal toxicity

A new paper discusses the hope held out by recent results on a compound called irisin, a short protein secreted by skeletal muscle that produces some exercise-related effects on the brain.

15 Sep 2022

Exercise hormone reduces protein levels linked to Parkinson's disease

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston have shown that a hormone secreted into the blood during endurance, or aerobic, exercise reduces levels of a protein linked to Parkinson's disease and halts movement problems in mice.

12 Sep 2022

Scientists reverse the effects of lysosomal storage disorders in patient cells and mice

Scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), and elsewhere have reversed the effects of several life-threatening inherited neurodegenerative diseases called lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs) in patient cells and mice.

9 Sep 2022

Understanding the molecular pathways that underly nutrient switch in starving cancer cells

Cancer cells often grow in environments that are low in nutrients, and they cope with this challenge by switching their metabolism to using proteins as alternative "food".

9 Sep 2022

Pitt researchers describe a pathway by which cells repair damaged lysosomes

Today in Nature, University of Pittsburgh researchers describe for the first time a pathway by which cells repair damaged lysosomes, structures that contribute to longevity by recycling cellular trash.

8 Sep 2022

Acid ceramidase is a SARS-CoV-2 host factor, study says

Fluoxetine, a common antidepressant, inhibits the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in cell cultures and in preparations from human lung tissue. This was demonstrated by researchers at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in the summer of 2020. However, the mechanism of this inhibition was utterly unclear, so the teams continued their research.

17 Aug 2022

What is the potential role of sphingosine kinase inhibitors as antiviral agents?

In a new study, researchers explored sphingosine kinases inhibitors and characterized the role of SKs in Ebola virus (EBOV) entry.

16 Aug 2022

The aging human brain

Researchers describe alterations at the molecular and cellular levels that underly brain aging in otherwise healthy elderly adults.

3 Aug 2022

Light-activated proteins can help normalize dysfunction within cells, study shows

New research from the University of Cincinnati shows early indications that light can be used as a treatment for certain diseases, including cancer.

2 Aug 2022

New chemical biological tools could help better understand the progression of Parkinson's disease

Researchers are a step closer to understanding how Parkinson's disease develops and progresses thanks to chemical biological tools developed at Simon Fraser University.

13 Jul 2022

Study reveals a new molecular perspective to the cause of Gaucher's disease

A study by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital and collaborating institutions is the first to associate neuronal activity to the levels of sphingolipids, a type of fat, in brain cells.

13 Jul 2022

Gene defect underlying Krabbe disease causes degeneration of neurons directly, study finds

The gene defect underlying Krabbe disease causes degeneration of neurons directly, independent of its effects on other cell types, according to a new study publishing July 5th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Daesung Shin of the University at Buffalo, U.S. and colleagues.

5 Jul 2022

U-M researchers reveal how a mutated protein acts as risk factor in Parkinson’s disease

In about a fifth of the cases of Parkinson’s disease, look to a small, malfunctioning protein in the lysosome as a risk factor, say University of Michigan researchers.

23 Jun 2022

New study in mice shows alternate origins of plaques in Alzheimer’s disease

A breakdown in how brain cells rid themselves of waste precedes the buildup of debris-filled plaques known to occur in Alzheimer's disease, a new study in mice shows.

2 Jun 2022

Cells do a little cleanup before mitosis

MIT researchers have discovered that before cells start to divide, they do a little cleanup, tossing out molecules that they appear not to need anymore.

10 May 2022

SARS-CoV-2 spike protein disrupts lipid metabolism resulting in liver, heart & kidney damage

A new study describes the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on host lipid metabolism.

21 Apr 2022

Chaperone-mediated autophagy needed to protect against atherosclerosis

Revving up a process that slows down as we age may protect against atherosclerosis, a major cause of heart attacks and strokes.

28 Mar 2022

How malaria drugs could play a part in treating chemotherapy-resistant head and neck cancers

In this interview, we speak to Kirill Kiselyov, Ph.D, and Umamaheswar Duvvuri, M.D, Ph.D, from the University of Pittsburgh, about their latest research into hydroxychloroquine, a drug widely used to prevent and treat malaria, as a potential treatment for head and neck cancers.

28 Mar 2022

Accumulation of damaged mitochondria triggers inflammatory processes that cause muscle atrophy

The loss of muscle mass and strength during aging is called sarcopenia. Affecting the elderly population, sarcopenia is a degenerative process that brings about a decrease in wellbeing and increased dependency.

22 Mar 2022

Malaria drug could help treat chemotherapy-resistant head and neck cancers

A new study suggests that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine inhibits pathways that drive resistance to the chemotherapy agent cisplatin in head and neck cancers and restores tumor-killing effects of cisplatin in animal models.

14 Mar 2022