Alzheimer’s disease: It’s not only neurons – glial cells also produce harmful proteins

15-Aug-2024 - Memory loss, confusion, speech problems – Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, affecting about 35 million people worldwide, and the number is growing. The protein amyloid beta, which occurs naturally in the brain, plays a central role in the disease: It accumulates in ...

With the Flick of a Switch: Shaping Cells with Light

The therapeutic potential of this research is immense

15-Apr-2024 - Imagine switching on a light and being able to understand and control the inner dynamics of a cell. This is what the Dimova group has achieved: by shining lights of different colors on replicates of cells, they altered the interactions between cellular elements.Controlling these complex ...

Sophisticated mechanism revealed: Cells inherit protection from sunburn

Stress granules protect cells from the effects of UV radiation

22-Mar-2024 - UV radiation in the sunlight causes sunburn and increases the risk of skin cancer by damaging our DNA but also our RNA. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Germany, have now unveiled a cellular shield that protect cells from the harmful effects of ...

Poorly insulated nerve cells promote Alzheimer’s disease in old age

The results of the study show, for the first time, that defective myelin in the aging brain increases the risk of Aꞵ peptide deposition

08-Jun-2023 - Alzheimer’s disease, an irreversible form of dementia, is considered the world’s most common neurodegenerative disease. The prime risk factor for Alzheimer’s is age, although it remains unclear why. It is known that the insulating layer around nerve cells in the brain, named myelin, degenerates ...

Wiggly proteins guard the genome

Dynamic network in the pores of the nuclear envelope blocks dangerous invaders

03-May-2023 - Tiny pores in the cell nucleus play an essential role for healthy aging by protecting and preserving the genetic material. A team in Germany from the Department of Theoretical Biophysics at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt am Main and the Synthetic Biophysics of Protein ...

Dieting: brain amplifies signal of hunger synapses

Possible target for drugs to combat the yo-yo effect

28-Mar-2023 - Many people who have dieted are familiar with the yo-yo effect: after the diet, the kilos are quickly put back on. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research and Harvard Medical School have now shown in mice that communication in the brain changes during a diet: The nerve ...

Creating 3D objects with sound

Scientists introduce a new technology to assemble matter in 3D using sound waves for 3D printing

14-Feb-2023 - Scientists from the Micro, Nano and Molecular Systems Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research and the Institute for Molecular Systems Engineering and Advanced Materials at Heidelberg University have created a new technology to assemble matter in 3D. Their concept uses multiple ...

Protein droplets may cause many types of genetic disease

Malfunction of cellular condensates is a disease mechanism relevant for congenital malformations, common diseases, and cancer

10-Feb-2023 - Most proteins localize to distinct protein-rich droplets in cells, also known as “cellular condensates”. Such proteins contain sequence features that function as address labels, telling the protein which condensate to move into. When the labels get screwed up, proteins may end up in the wrong ...

Discovery in Parkinson’s research: Lipids influence the formation of protein clumps

Findings could open new approaches to diagnosing and treating Parkinson’s disease

17-Nov-2022 - After Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s is the most common neurodegenerative disease in the world. More than six million people worldwide suffer from it. In this disease, alpha-synuclein proteins form thread-like structures called fibrils. When these fibrils clump together, they probably damage nerve ...

Cell-culture breakthrough: Advanced “mini brains” in the dish

Organoids that mimic human brain cortex in development and disease

27-Jun-2022 - “Outer Radial Glia” (oRG) cells are nervous system stem cells that are instrumental for the development of the human cortex and have been challenging to produce in the lab. Now, a team of Max Planck researchers from Berlin succeeded in generating brain organoids that are enriched with these stem ...