Caspase 3 exhibits a yeast metacaspase proteostasis function that protects mitochondria from toxic TDP43 aggregates

July 10, 2023

Caspase 3 activation is a hallmark of cell death and there is a strong correlation between elevated protease activity and evolving pathology in neurodegenerative disease, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). These results suggest that caspase 3 is not inherently pathogenic, but may act as a compensatory proteostasis factor, to limit TDP-43 protein inclusions and protect organelle function in aggregation related degenerative disease.

Endolysosomal pathway activity protects cells from neurotoxic TDP-43

March 21, 2018

In this article, the authors comment on the study "TDP-43 controls lysosomal pathways thereby determining its own clearance and cytotoxicity" by Leibiger et al. (Hum Mol Genet, 2018), proposing that ameliorating endolysosomal pathway activity enhances cell survival in TDP‑43-associated diseases.

Live fast, die fast principle in a single cell of fission yeast

August 13, 2017

This article comments on a recent study (Nakaoka and Wakamoto, PLoS Biol, 2017), which developed a microfluidics-based platform to track multiple single cell lineages until death.

Protein aggregation triggers a declining libido in elder yeasts that still have a lust for life

May 29, 2017

This article comments on work published by Schlissel et al (Science 2017), showing that aging in yeast does not lead to the expected loss of heterochromatin silencing due to Sir2 inactivity, but rather to reduced mating pheromone sensitivity caused by the aggregation of the RNA-binding protein Whi3, which can be reversed by eliminating Whi3's polyglutamine domain.

The copper transport-associated protein Ctr4 can form prion-like epigenetic determinants in Schizosaccharomyces pombe

January 2, 2017

Ctr4 exhibits multiple features diagnostic of other fungal prions and is the first example of a prion in fission yeast. These findings suggest that transmissible protein-based determinants of traits may be more widespread among fungi.