On November 17 at 10 am, Dr. Yuyu Song was invited by our professor Qiang Zhou and made a presentation titled "Protein Misfolding in Neurodegeneration".
Misfolded proteins can cause a variety of neurodegenerative diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS disease. Ten percent of ALS is familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Ninety percent is a sporadic, and it is a movement neuron disease. In this report, Dr. Yuyu Song mentioned misfolded proteins cause some misfolded protein response, including neurotoxicity and some stress signaling. These stress signaling can cause proteasomes autophagy, which will lead to protein degradation. These misfolded protein responses will cause synaptic dysfunction and axonal transport defects. Dr. Yuyu Song here mainly talked about the role of the SOD1 misfolding and C9ORF72 hex nucleotide repeat expansion in ALS disease mechanisms. Misfolded SOD1 will affect p38 and MAPK signaling pathways which is kinase-based signaling. C9ORF72 anomalies will also affect these signaling pathways, and it will also affect the function of motor proteins which is with axonal transport. All of these reactions will lead to dying-back degeneration. Dr. Yuyu Song talked about studies of misfolded proteins which can provide new ideas for the treatment of ALS, while providing a new animal model for the treatment of other neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Yuyu Song report rigorously in detail, describe us changing in the biological signaling pathways induced by misfolded proteins. At the end of the report, Dr. Yuyu Song and our faculty and students on the content of the report exchanged their discussion.