{"id":836,"date":"2010-10-25T00:56:39","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T04:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/ombs\/?p=836"},"modified":"2010-10-25T00:56:39","modified_gmt":"2010-10-25T04:56:39","slug":"a-medical-molecular-mechanism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/2010\/10\/25\/a-medical-molecular-mechanism\/","title":{"rendered":"A Medical Molecular Mechanism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"addthis_button\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;username=xa-4bb6bcc8320e5dd9\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/v2\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js#username=xa-4bb6bcc8320e5dd9\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span>Tired of hearing about halogenation and hydrogenation reaction mechanisms? Keep that organic chemistry book open, because it gets better:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>At Columbia University Medical Center, researchers have discovered the reason for the build-up of harmful proteins in Parkinson\u2019s patients. The scientists have worked out a mechanism for the build-up of a class of proteins known as <em>polyamines<\/em>, a known neuron-killer involved in Parkinson\u2019s disease. High-resolution fMRI scans showed a brainstem region in Parkinson\u2019s patients that produced less activity than the same region in healthy patients. Based on tissue samples from deceased patients, Dr. Scott A. Small\u00a0 of Columbia posits that SAT1, an enzyme that breaks down polyamines, might\u00a0 play a role in the development of Parkinson\u2019s and thus explain the differences in the fMRI studies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span> <\/span>Experiments in yeast, mice and humans have shown the pathogenicity of polyamines. At Brandeis University, researchers showed that yeast cells engineered to produce polyamines died more quickly than yeasts that were not. Scientists at UC San Diego School of Medicine used mice to both demonstrate the connection between SAT1, polyamines and Parkinson\u2019s and to show that SAT1-targeting drugs could help to deter the progression of the disease. In addition, Columbia researchers have studied the SAT1 gene and found a genetic variation that is present in Parkinson\u2019s patients but absent in healthy control subjects.<\/p>\n<p><span> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Several years ago, polyamine-lowering drugs were being studied as potential cancer treatments. It was unclear in these trials whether or not the drugs could penetrate the blood-brain barrier. The ability to penetrate the blood-brain barrier is crucial for Parkinson\u2019s treatments: if the drug cannot get through, it must be administered into the brain directly. Dr. Small\u2019s lab is currently working on drugs that can pass through the blood-brain barrier so that Parkinson\u2019s can be effectively treated with pills rather than brain surgery!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Sources\/Additional Readings<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/polyamine-protein-molecular-pathway-parkinsons-disease-neurology-research\/\" target=\"_blank\">New Molecular Pathway Underlying Parkinson&#8217;s Disease Identified<\/a><span> &#8211; Karin Eskenazi, media contact, neurosciencenews.com<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/20837543\">Polyamine pathway contributes to the pathogenesis of Parkinson disease<\/a><span> &#8211; Lewandowski et al. (Original Article)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tired of hearing about halogenation and hydrogenation reaction mechanisms? Keep that organic chemistry book open, because it gets better: At Columbia University Medical Center, researchers have discovered the reason for the build-up of harmful proteins in Parkinson\u2019s patients. The scientists have worked out a mechanism for the build-up of a class of proteins known as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6448,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6448"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}