Publications related to Rethinking protein aggregation and drug discovery in neurodegenerative diseases: Why we need to embrace complexity?

Method of preparation of amyloidogenic protein aggregates and uses thereof

The invention relates to methods for the preparation of method of preparation of Tau aggregates, including fibrils, fibrillar species, soluble and insoluble oligomeric species, new Tau aggregates and uses thereof. The invention further relates to the uses ...

2024

Targeting TDP-43 Proteinopathies in Neurodegeneration by its Native-State Stabilization

Lixin Yang

Preventing the misfolding or aggregation of TDP-43 is the most actively pursued disease-modifying strategy to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative diseases. In our work, we provide proof of concept that native state stabili ...

EPFL2024

Development and clinical validation of computational imaging biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases

Veronica Lily Ravano

Neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory disorders often involve complex pathophysiological mechanisms that are â to this date â only partially understood. A more comprehensive understanding of those microstructural processes and their characterization ...

EPFL2024

Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Complexity of Tau pathology

Galina Limorenko

This thesis consists of four Chapters unified by a singular theme â how do we develop disease models that faithfully reproduce the pathology seen in patients suffering from neurodegenerative disorders associated with the Tau protein, such as Alzheimerâ ...

EPFL2023

Effective Inhibition of TDP-43 Aggregation by Native State Stabilization

Hilal Lashuel, Lixin Yang, Yllza Jasiqi

Preventing the misfolding or aggregation of transactive response DNA binding protein with 43 kDa (TDP-43) is the most actively pursued disease-modifying strategy to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases. In this work, we ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2024

Trans‐seeding of Alzheimer‐related tau protein by a yeast prion

Henning Paul-Julius Stahlberg, Zhiva Skachokova

Abnormal tau protein aggregates constitute a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. The mechanisms underlying the initiation of tau aggregation in sporadic neurodegeneration remain unclear. Here we investigate whether a non-human prion can seed tau aggregation. ...

2022

Opportunities and challenges of alpha-synuclein as a potential biomarker for Parkinson's disease and other synucleinopathies

Hilal Lashuel, Pedro José Santana Ribeiro Magalhães

Parkinson's disease (PD), the second most common progressive neurodegenerative disease, develops and progresses for 10-15 years before the clinical diagnostic symptoms of the disease are manifested. Furthermore, several aspects of PD pathology overlap with ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2022

Alpha-synuclein as a Potential Biomarker for Parkinson’s Disease and Other Synucleinopathies: Gaps, Challenges, and Opportunities

Hilal Lashuel, Pedro José Santana Ribeiro Magalhães

Parkinson's disease (PD), the second most common progressive neurodegenerative disease, develops and progresses for 10-15 years before the clinical diagnostic symptoms of the disease are manifested. Furthermore, several aspects of PD pathology overlap with ...

2022

Tau seeds from patients induce progressive supranuclear palsy pathology and symptoms in primates

Tomislav Milekovic, Grégoire Courtine, Flavio Raschella

Progressive supranuclear palsy is a primary tauopathy affecting both neurons and glia and is responsible for both motor and cognitive symptoms. Recently, it has been suggested that progressive supranuclear palsy tauopathy may spread in the brain from cell ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2022

Capturing the heterogeneity of alpha-synuclein pathology in synucleinopathies

Melek Firat Altay

Synucleinopathies such as Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and multiple system atrophy (MSA) are detrimental neurodegenerative diseases. Alpha-synuclein (aSyn), the main aggregating protein found in the pathological inclusions of these ailmen ...

EPFL2022

Towards elucidating the structural and cellular determinants of a-synuclein seeding and toxicity

Somanath Jagannath

Although it has been nearly two and half decades since the discovery of alpha-synuclein (aSyn) as the major component of Lewy bodies (LBs), our understanding of the involvement of different aSyn species, their seeding, spreading and toxicity in Parkinson's ...

EPFL2022

Pathological substrate of memory impairment in multiple system atrophy

Hilal Lashuel, Melek Firat Altay

Aims: Synaptic dysfunction in Parkinson's disease is caused by propagation of pathogenic alpha-synuclein between neurons. Previously, in multiple system atrophy (MSA), pathologically characterised by ectopic deposition of abnormal alpha-synuclein predomina ...

WILEY2022

Fading of brain network fingerprint in Parkinson's disease predicts motor clinical impairment

Enrico Amico, Antonella Romano

The clinical connectome fingerprint (CCF) was recently introduced as a way to assess brain dynamics. It is an approach able to recognize individuals, based on the brain network. It showed its applicability providing network features used to predict the cog ...

Wiley2023

Structural strains of misfolded tau protein define different diseases

Henning Paul-Julius Stahlberg

In diseases called tauopathies, misfolded tau proteins form aggregates called fibrils. Fibrils from nine different tauopathies show that tau misfolds in many ways, enabling the diseases to be classified according to fibril structure. ...

2021

Enforced dimerization between XBP1s and ATF6f enhances the protective effects of the UPR in models of neurodegeneration

Hilal Lashuel, Sonia Donzelli

Alteration to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) proteostasis is observed in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases associated with abnormal protein aggregation. Activation of the unfolded protein response (UPR) enables an adaptive reaction to recover ER proteost ...

2021

To target Tau pathologies, we must embrace and reconstruct their complexities

Hilal Lashuel, Galina Limorenko

The accumulation of hyperphosphorylated fibrillar Tau aggregates in the brain is one of the defining hallmarks of Tauopathy diseases, including Alzheimer's disease. However, the primary events or molecules responsible for initiation of the pathological Tau ...

ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE2021

Enhancing mitochondrial quality control to fight neuromuscular degeneration in aging and disease

Mario Romani

Loss of mitochondrial function and proteostasis typify aging and age-associated degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and muscle aging. To date, no cure or preventive measure is available to manage these conditions. Alterations of cellular pro ...

EPFL2021

Reverse engineering Lewy bodies: how far have we come and how far can we go?

Hilal Lashuel, Mohamed Bilal Fares, Somanath Jagannath

Lewy bodies (LBs) are α-synuclein (α-syn)-rich intracellular inclusions that are an important pathological hallmark of Parkinson disease and several other neurodegenerative diseases. Increasing evidence suggests that the aggregation of α-syn has a central ...

2021

A New Chemoenzymatic Semisynthetic Approach Provides Insight into the Role of Phosphorylation beyond Exon1 of Huntingtin and Reveals N-Terminal Fragment Length-Dependent Distinct Mechanisms of Aggregation

Hilal Lashuel, Andreas Reif, Jonathan Jean-Pierre Ricci, Gopinath Pushparathinam, Rajasekhar Kolla, Iman Rostami

Huntington’s disease is a neurodegenerative dis- order caused by the expansion of a polyglutamine repeat (>36Q) in the N-terminal domain of the huntingtin protein (Htt), which renders the protein or fragments thereof more prone to aggregate and form inclus ...

2021

Music influences vividness and content of imagined journeys in a directed visual imagery task

Gabriele Cecchetti, Steffen Alexander Herff, Ken Jacques Alfonso Deguernel

Directed, intentional imagination is pivotal for self-regulation in the form of escapism and therapies for a wide variety of mental health conditions, such anxiety and stress disorders, as well as phobias. Clinical application in particular benefits from i ...

Nature Portfolio2021