[서울신문] Presenting a pathology model that opens up the possibility of early treatment for degenerative brain diseases

DGIST’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences Professor Seong-Bae Lee’s research team has newly identified a key regulatory mechanism that controls the movement of TDP-43 protein into nerve cells, which contributes to the onset of various degenerative brain diseases such as Lou Gehrig’s disease and frontotemporal dementia. This research, conducted in collaboration with the research team of Professor Hwang Dae-hee of the Department of Life Sciences at Seoul National University, is expected to open the possibility for the development of effective treatments in the early stages of Lou Gehrig’s disease and frontotemporal dementia.

The joint research team of Professor Seong-bae Lee and Professor Dae-hee Hwang of the Department of Life Sciences at Seoul National University conducted a study on a physiological program that regulates the movement of the TDP-43 protein between the nucleus and cytoplasm in nerve cells. As a result, it was found that the intracellular calcium-calpain-impotin-linked signaling system was involved, and when the cellular environment changed under normal circumstances, the intracellular location of the TDP-43 protein changed between the cytoplasm and the nucleus.

In particular, through this study, it was confirmed that the motility of the ALS animal model can be significantly restored by properly controlling the intracellular’calcium-calpain-impotin signaling system’ according to the disease progression. Therefore, the joint research team suggested that TDP-43 protein can be prevented from degenerative brain disease by preemptively controlling the movement of TDP-43 protein in the early stages of the disease before it is abnormally aggregated and toxic in the cytoplasm of nerve cells. A new treatment strategy was proposed.

Professor Seong-Bae Lee said, “This study has identified a cell’s intrinsic program that controls the intracellular migration of TDP-43, a representative degenerative brain disease-causing protein,” he said. “In the future, various degenerative brain diseases involving TDP-43 protein such as Lou Gehrig It is expected that it will be possible to develop treatments based on new strategies for diseases.”

This research was conducted in collaboration with the research team of Professor Hwang Dae-hee of Seoul National University, and DGIST’s Brain and Cognitive Science major Jeong-hyang Park and Dr. Chang-geun Jeong participated as co-first authors. The research results were published on the online edition of’eLife’, an academic journal in the field of life science, on December 11 last year, and are the results of the Basic Research Laboratory (BRL) support project carried out with the support of the National Research Foundation of Korea, funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and ICT.

Daegu Han Chan-gyu reporter [email protected]