Proteasome overload

Researchers at Duke University School of Medicine have found that activating proteasomes in the retina could treat degenerative retinal diseases driven by protein misfolding and expect the approach could apply to other neurodegenerative disorders.

Vadim Arshavsky, a professor of ophthalmology and pharmacology at Duke, told BioCentury the team first identified proteasomes as a potential therapeutic target for retinal degeneration in a 2013 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study showed that in several mouse models of inherited retinal degeneration, proteasomes in the photoreceptors did not have the capacity to process the high levels of misfolded proteins inherent to the disease, leading to protein buildup and cell death. ...