The role of Lamp1 in age-related neurodegenerative diseases"
Description: Parkinson disease (PD) is second most common disease after Alzheimer’s, affecting about one million patients in the US. PD destroys certain neurons in the brain due to the failure to remove the protein a-synuclein. Specifically in case of PD, expression of toxic forms of a-synuclein in the brain in fly recapitulate the loss of these neurons and behavioral changes in healthspan assays.
About 10 to 20 percent of PD cases have genetic causes. One of the major genetic risk factors associated with the development of PD is mutations in the GBA1 gene. Although the exact mechanism is not known, GBA1 mutations result in reduced clearance of a-synuclein, contributing to age related progression of PD.
We have found that Lamp1, a protein important for the function of lysosomes, the major degradative center of the cells, may have related functions to GBA1. Importantly, if Lamp1 is absent, flies show stronger PD-related problems that include worse healthspan.
Thus, I will address the role of Lamp1 in countering a-synuclein related problems and the idea that Lamp1 and GBA1 possibly have related roles. Overall, this work will thus shed important light on the mechanism of how PD develops in flies, which will inform us about how this process may happen in patients, as a surprisingly high number of processes are very similar in flies and humans.
Amount: $75,000
Funding type: award
Start date: 2023-09-01
End date: 2024-08-31
Investigators: Satya Surabhi, Gerard McMorrow, Suzanne Locke, Richard Stanley, Indranil Basu
Institution: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Funded outputs count: 1
Funder award ID: 1058594
OpenAlex ID: G4278077394