#Chaperone proteins in mad cow disease how to

Part of this is lack of clarity in what is going on at the molecular level in these very complex diseases and the need for better tools like the custom tools that we have developed.'Ī biophysicist, Woodside works with custom-designed and custom-built laser tweezers to study these protein folding and misfolding processes at the single molecular level. 'I don't know how many billions of dollars have been spent on failed drugs for neurodegenerative diseases. 'We are addressing a problem that has proven really difficult,' says Woodside. The anti-prion compound Woodside's group studied is geared to maintain the native cell structure and prevent misfolding, but the drug discovery and development process has been hampered by incomplete understanding of how these compounds act. In the case of prion proteins, the misfolded proteins become infectious and neurotoxic, causing the misfolding to spiral out of control and kill neurons. If enough protein molecules change into the wrong structure, the chaperones can be overwhelmed, allowing the misfolded proteins to accumulate. Woodside explains that in a healthy body, 'chaperone' proteins ward off molecules with incorrect structures. It not only stabilizes the correct structure, it also inhibits the interactions that drive the formation of stable incorrect structures.' 'What we have found is that the effect of the anti-prion compound is more complex than we originally thought. 'Our results are surprisingly similar to how some of the machinery in healthy cells functions to keep misfolded proteins at bay,' says Woodside. He and his colleagues-including Valerie Sim from the U of A Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry-are working to get at the root of the problem, right down to the molecular level. Woodside explains that though the causes of diseases associated with protein misfolding are often hotly debated, it is undeniable that the misfolding of proteins in each creates a cascade-like effect of problems. There's a wide range of diseases associated one way or another when proteins convert into the wrong shape.' These diseases include not only Mad Cow and Creutzfeld-Jakob, but also Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's, and Huntington's. 'There are a number of things that can go wrong if you don't have the right protein structure.

#Chaperone proteins in mad cow disease how to

'The goal of our work is to figure out how to address protein misfolding diseases,' says Michael Woodside, professor in the Department of Physics, cross-appointed at the National Institute for Nanotechnology.