Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
MURATA Miho DEPARTMENT OF NEUROLOGY, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, 医学部附属病院, 助手 (30282643)
GOTO Jun DEPARTMENT OF NEUROLOGY, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, 医学部附属病院, 助手 (10211252)
KWAK Shin DEPARTMENT OF NEUROLOGY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, 医学部附属病院, 助教授 (40160981)
MASAYASU Hiroyuki DAIICHI DRUG COMPANY, GROUP CHIEF (Researcher), 医薬開発企画部, グループ長(研究職)
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Research Abstract |
Caspases are partly accepted as responsible molecules for neuronal death particularly due to apoptosis. At first, we postulated to suppress neuronal death by inhibition of caspases. However, it was practically difficult to do so mainly because caspase inhibitors are not specific for each substrate. When we investigated the relationship between nuclear morphology and activities of caspases (caspase 1,2,3,6,9) in cultured cells, SHSY5Y, we found a clear discrepancy. In fact, caspase activities were normal even when nuclei were apoptotically segmented. These findings, however, are largely predictable and not novel. Then, we made a plan to suppress the disease process by a different method. Since GAG repeat expansion diseases are caused by the expression of the abnormal gene products, we planned to supress the disease by using a method based on RNAi. This budget was used for the latter project effectively.
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