Publication highlights

Researchers at the Crick are trying to understand what goes on inside neurons; one approach is to establish where and when genes are active within them. In a collaboration with Joshua Edel and Alex Ivanov at Imperial, they have used a minimally invasive “nanotweezer” to extract mRNA from precise locations within living neurons, using a localised electric field. The researchers can do this repeatedly without harming the cell, enabling us to track changes in gene expression over time and from different regions of the same neuron. This allows them to determine how neurons respond to their environment with more precision than previously possible.

Protein aggregation drives neuronal death in Parkinson’s disease, although how transition of monomeric protein structures to aggregated forms causes toxicity is unknown. We demonstrate that aggregation of the protein α-synuclein generates beta sheet-rich oligomers, which localise to the mitochondrial inner membrane, where they impair complex I-dependent respiration, induce oxidation of ATP synthase and cause mitochondrial lipid peroxidation. These oxidation events result in opening of the permeability transition pore, triggering mitochondrial swelling, and ultimately cell death. This work highlights how structural conversion of a protein changes its physiological interaction with proteins and lipids, and induces pathology in human cell models of disease.

Aberrant protein-lipid interactions occur in neurodegeneration, although their role is unclear. We show how the protein α-synuclein interacts with lipids to drive a form of cell death, ferroptosis. As α-synuclein aggregates, oligomeric species with hydrophobic domains incorporate into the plasmalemmal membrane, leading to altered membrane conductance and abnormal calcium influx following glutamatergic and dopaminergic stimuli. Aggregates induce iron dependent generation of free radicals, and peroxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids, which underlies the incorporation of aggregates into the membranes. Targeted inhibition of lipid peroxidation prevents the aggregate-membrane interaction, abolishes aberrant calcium fluxes, and restores physiological calcium signaling in human neurons, highlighting a new causative role for lipid homeostasis in Parkinson’s disease.