24 ms·
The protein Reelin keeps popping up in brains that resist aging and Alzheimer’s
- nicwolff 2y agoI'll be pissed off if they cure aging when I'm already 80. And then if they cure death I guess I'll be pissed off forever.
- xvector 2y agoIt amazes me that we do not have a publicly funded initiative to cure death. It makes me incredibly angry and frustrated at both the general populace and the government. First, the idiocy of the general populace to not prioritize death as a problem when it will inevitably be one for them, their children, and everyone they know; and second, for the government to waste trillions of dollars on useless initiatives when that could instead be invested in curing an ailment that has plagued every human to ever live. If we cared as much about curing aging and death as we did about investing in even a single fighter jet program, we may well be there by now. I feel like I live in a clown world where the average person hems and haws over trivial problems when they are literally about to fucking die.
- datameta 2y agoLuckily we can already start increasing our healthspan with all the recent available research.
- Khelavaster 2y agoReelin is transcribed 4 genes away from acetylcholinesterase. And is a core collagen component. No wonder it's tied to Alzheimer's..
- ghotli 2y agoIs there some place on the internet that shows this "4 genes away" evidence? I'm imagining that there is some tool that those involved in this work are aware of that I am not.
- bglazer 2y agoThe UCSC genome browser is the best way to find where genes are mapped to in DNA. Here's a link that shows ACHE (acetylcholinesterase) and RELN (reelin) in the same view. https://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgTracks?db=hg38&lastVirtModeType=default&lastVirtModeExtraState=&virtModeType=default&virtMode=0&nonVirtPosition=&position=chr7%3A99028414%2D104923413&hgsid=2323597120_2eFL8swae08KyWGhG4U9di1713ry https://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgTracks?db=hg38&lastVirtMod...
- ghotli 2y agoVery cool, thank you!
- pc86 2y ago"Reelin is transcribed 4 genes away from $ENZYME" sounds like it is of the same general category as "Humans share 98% of their DNA with a chimpanzee and 97% of it with a banana" or whatever. Is that me just not understanding it? I would think 4 genes could have huge impact on functionality.
- jldugger 2y agoI believe they're using "4 genes away" as a proxy of basepair distance, not similarity. It's all very messy business but it's not unreasonable that transcription promoters for those other genes also promote reelin transcription.
- XMPPwocky 2y agoIs this (genes physically close together, but not contiguous, being affected by the same/related promoters) something commonly seen? I'd love to learn more about it if so!
- ted_dunning 2y agoThere is evidence even from the early days of genomics that recombination and thus evolution worked in (approximate) units at a time. This means that when a new mechanism for regulation appeared, it often regulated many pathways coded in idiosyncratic ways. That leads to the observed local commonality of mechanism. The place that I saw this in my own work was in the way that ends of intervening sequence (introns) was coded for excision during expression of proteins. The different ends of different introns behaved differently and introns in different parts of genomes had slightly different dialects. The relationship of similarity and locality in regulators is different from this, but is another case of proximity being a proxy for similarity.
- XMPPwocky 2y agoThank you, this is very interesting!
- 2y ago
- wizzwizz4 2y agoCan you make any future predictions of this type? That could speed up research.
- bglazer 2y agoI'm not sure how you're getting the 4 genes away thing, I'm seeing like 20-30 genes and more than 2 megabases of distance in between RLN and ACHE. I'd be surprised if they were even in the same topologically associated domain.
- highfrequency 2y ago“Although the research focused on a single person, it reverberated through the world of brain science and even got the attention of the (then) acting director of the National Institutes of Health, Lawrence Tabak. “Sometimes careful study of even just one truly remarkable person can lead the way to fascinating discoveries with far-reaching implications,” Tabak wrote in his blog post about the discovery.” Very cool - they found an extended family in Medellin, Colombia where virtually everyone got early-onset Alzheimer’s. Except for one guy. Studying his genome revealed a variant related to Reelin, and subsequent studies suggest that Reelin is indeed neuroprotective.
- throwup238 2y ago[flagged]
- wizzwizz4 2y ago[flagged]
- zdragnar 2y agoHaving watched what it did to family members, it's hard to me, personally, find any joke about Alzheimer's or dementia funny. The structure and phrasing work to tickle the part of my mind that enjoys juxtaposition, though, so that was nice at least.
- SoftTalker 2y agoSome people use humor to cope with unpleasant things. No offense is intended.
- jfengel 2y agoIntended or not, people do get hurt by it. We've all got different ways of handling it so the best we can hope for is some mutual compassion and thoughtfulness. One factor in that is to realize that the effect is more relevant than the intention.
- bdcravens 2y agoThe almost daily information I'm hearing about Alzheimer's research is reassuring. My wife's grandmother died of it, and her mother is probably in the first 1/4 of its development. Today's gains may be too late to help her, but I'm hoping they will develop into useful treatments before my wife would start developing symptoms.
- adamc 2y agoMy mom died of it, and at least one of my brothers worries about it a lot. But it's not typically familial, and my mom's parents both lived to their late 80s without any signs of dementia.
- martin82 2y agoAlzheimer's is a metabolic disease. It's also dubbed "type 3 diabetes" nowadays. Don't eat carbs, exercise regularly, thus keep your insulin resistance and overall inflammation low and you won't get Alzheimer's.
- Theodores 2y agoMy favourite research is that quality nutrition is what you need, however, this means a whole food, plant based diet. What that means is no animal fats or refined animal fats as these have been blocking arteries since the 1950s, or whenever it was that Ancel Keys did his landmark studies that made saturated fats bad. I am okay with that. The keto diet community believe that Ancel Keys was not right and that sugar is the enemy that causes all of the problems, probably including blocked brain arteries. The whole food, plant based diet does not include refined sugar, so, hedge your bets by staying off the animal fats and added sugar. By staying off the sugar, that eliminates processed foods that invariably have refined fats and oils such as palm oil and much else that gets saturated in processing.
- vhcr 2y agoThis is so out of touch, having a healthy diet is obviously going to help reduce the risk of getting Alzheimer's disease, but it is in no way the ultimate cure.
- akira2501 2y agoExceptionally off topic but the name seems appropriate and definitely reminds me of a Steely Dan song: "Are you reelin' in the years? Stowin' away the time"
- adamc 2y agoGreat song, with one of the greatest guitar solos ever.
- nickburns 2y agoMy dad would really appreciate this crack. ;) Him and I got to see them live together before Walter Becker passed. :\
- Wolfenstein98k 2y agoHe and I* Remove "and I" to figure out whether to use He or Him, and remove "He and" to figure out when to use "& I" or "& me".
- alecst 2y agoI always hated this because English is not so simple. To my eye, “me and him went to the store” or “him and me went to the store” both sound good to my ear. But “he and I went to the store” sounds slightly weird, and “I and he went to the store” just sounds awful. Which makes me think this rule is bogus, and that when you compose pronouns with “and”, English actually prefers the object case even when in the subject position. If it were as simple as the rule you suggest, the order of the pronouns would not matter. I’ve also heard people say (e.g.) “he did it with X and I” which makes me think “She and I” in the subject position (for example) is more of a prescriptive grammatical virus than actual English.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoEither form is cromulent as both are historically accurate.
- 2y ago
- AlexErrant 2y ago> Purified recombinant Reelin was injected bilaterally into the ventricles of wild-type mice. We demonstrate that a single in vivo injection of Reelin increased activation of adaptor protein Disabled-1 and cAMP-response element binding protein after 15 min. These changes correlated with increased dendritic spine density, increased hippocampal CA1 long-term potentiation (LTP), and enhanced performance in associative and spatial learning and memory. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166788/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166788/ Published 2011. It's been a while... I wonder what it would take to reach human trials.
- trallnag 2y agoHumans have to become mice to advance
- loa_in_ 2y agoFuture mice-kind archaeologists will have a treasure trove of research to dig through
- bamboozled 2y agoThat's a funny thought, we experiment on mice, then one day we accidentally create super mice while trying to solve diseases. From that day, it will be the mice who dominate our world. I welcome our cute new overlords.
- grioghar 2y agoWhen the Yogurt Took Over…
- bitwize 2y agoThe Secret of NIMH mentioned. Let's go!
- unsupp0rted 2y agoThat's the premise of the (newer) Planet of the Apes movies
- Retz4o4 2y ago[flagged]
- m3kw9 2y agoI wonder if some countries with loose labs will offer this for a big sums
- jeeshan 2y agoAmazing science, so much gratitude to the family!
- polskibus 2y agoCheck this out https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6667498/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6667498/ Reelin seems to also decrease obesity and hunger. Sounds like a wonder drug.
- janpmz 2y agoI asked ChatGPT which behaviour results in Reelin being present. It's physical exercise, cognitive activities and social interaction. Behaviours that reduce Reelin are stress, drugs and bad nutrition. Maybe it's just correlation.
- hieronymusN 2y agoLooks like Reelin has other effects outside the brain, not always positive. https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(23)00680-0 https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(23)006...
- emptybits 2y agoThank you for sharing that. Under "Reelin Effects", at least two negatives caught my eye: Coagulation: Reelin promotes thrombus formation. Atherosclerosis: Reelin promotes inflammation and plaque formation.
- 1propionyl 2y ago"Are you Reelin' in the years?" Steely Dan tried to tell us. We just didn't listen.