Understanding protein aggregation: the role of ribonucleic acids

The hallmark of many neurological diseases is anormal protein distribution and aggregation. Recently, a process termed phase-separation emerged as a mechanism to rapidly control protein distribution. Together with the laboratories of Tony Hyman and Simon Alberti (MPI-CBG), Jared Sterneckert discovered how ribonucleic acids regulate protein distributions. Lara Marrone, a PhD student in the Sterneckert lab, prepared iPS cell-derived neural progenitors and motor neurons to study protein distributions in presence and absence of ribonucleic acids in vivo.

Publication: Science 12 Apr 2018: eaar7366, DOI: 10.1126/science.aar7366 "RNA buffers the phase separation behavior of prion-like RNA binding proteins"