Technique developed to identify rogue clustering proteins in brain diseases

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDMar 19 2012

Australian researchers have developed a novel technique that tracks proteins “behaving badly” and may have found a way that leads to new treatments for brain disease. The team believes the discovery could help in the development of drugs to treat diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's.

They study published in Nature Methods on Monday, is the first of its kind to rapidly identify and track the location of diseased proteins inside cells. It was developed by Dr Danny Hatters and his team at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Melbourne.

The technique uses a flow cytometer to track the protein clusters in cells at a rate of 1000s per minute. In addition, cells with clustered proteins can be recovered for further study - neither of which had been possible before. “Being able to identify locations of diseased proteins in cells enables drugs to be developed to target different stages of disease development,” Dr Hatters said.

He said it was the first time researchers were able to understand how proteins cluster and cause damage in diseases like Alzheimer's. It also offers hope in improving treatments for a range of neurological and other conditions, he said. “No drugs at this stage can stop the clustering process in Huntington's disease,” he said. “This sets up platforms to develop drugs that block the formation of clusters,” he explained. This work builds on Dr Hatters previous research where he and his team identified the behaviour of diseased Huntington proteins forming into clusters.

The technique can also be used to examine how signalling processes occur such as when genes are switched on and off. “It has application to track events of abnormal gene signalling such as in cancer,” Dr Hatters said. “This technique offers hope in improving treatments for a range of neurological and other conditions,” he said.