Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies or prion diseases are rapidly progressive neurodegenerative diseases, the clinical manifestation of which can resemble other promptly evolving neurological maladies. Therefore, the unequivocal ante-mortem diagnosis is highly challenging and was only possible by histopathological and immunohistochemical anal...
Published in Molecular neurobiology
The large chronic wasting disease (CWD)-affected cervid population in the USA and Canada, and the risk of the disease being transmitted to humans through intermediate species, is a highly worrying issue that is still poorly understood. In this case, recombinant protein misfolding cyclic amplification was used to determine, in vitro, the relevance o...
Published in Cell calcium
Ca2+ is a ubiquitous, dynamic and pluripotent second messenger with highly context-dependent roles in complex cellular processes such as differentiation, proliferation, and cell death. These Ca2+ signals are generated by Ca2+-permeable channels located on the plasma membrane (PM) and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and shaped by PM- and ER-localized pum...
Published in Cellular Physiology and Biochemistry
Background/Aims: Red blood cells (RBC) have been shown to exhibit stable submicrometric lipid domains enriched in cholesterol (chol), sphingomyelin (SM), phosphatidylcholine (PC) or ganglioside GM1, which represent the four main lipid classes of their outer plasma membrane leaflet. However, whether those lipid domains co-exist at the RBC surface or...
Published in BMC Cancer
BackgroundRemodeling of Ca2+ signaling is an important step in cancer progression, and altered expression of members of the Ca2+ signaling toolkit including the plasma membrane Ca2+ ATPases (PMCA proteins encoded by ATP2B genes) is common in tumors.MethodsIn this study PMCAs were examined in breast cancer datasets and in a variety of breast cancer ...
Published in Molecular Neurobiology
Prion pathologies are characterized by the conformational conversion of the cellular prion protein (PrPC) into a pathological infectious isoform, known as PrPSc. The latter acquires different abnormal conformations, which are associated with specific pathological phenotypes. Recent evidence suggests that prions adapt their conformation to changes i...
Published in Acta Neuropathologica Communications
The diagnosis and treatment of synucleinopathies such as Parkinson disease and dementia with Lewy bodies would be aided by the availability of assays for the pathogenic disease-associated forms of α-synuclein (αSynD) that are sufficiently sensitive, specific, and practical for analysis of accessible diagnostic specimens. Two recent αSynD seed ampli...
Published in Neuron
Plasma membrane Ca2+-ATPases (PMCAs), a family of P-type ATPases, extrude Ca2+ ions from the cytosol to the extracellular space and are considered to be key regulators of Ca2+ signaling. Here we show by functional proteomics that native PMCAs are heteromeric complexes that are assembled from two pore-forming PMCA1-4 subunits and two of the single-s...
Published in Acta Neuropathologica
Prion diseases are caused by a misfolding of the cellular prion protein (PrP) to a pathogenic isoform named PrPSc. Prions exist as strains, which are characterized by specific pathological and biochemical properties likely encoded in the three-dimensional structure of PrPSc. However, whether cofactors determine these different PrPSc conformations a...
Published in Progress in retinal and eye research
Age-related cataracts are closely associated with lens chronological aging, oxidation, calcium imbalance, hydration and crystallin modifications. Accumulating evidence indicates that misfolded proteins are generated in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) by most cataractogenic stresses. To eliminate misfolded proteins from cells before they can induce s...
