New tool 'can identify key ageing mechanism in cells'

Healthcare News
25/07/2008
Scientists report on new research.

Scientists say they have developed a new technique which can identify key cell changes related to ageing and diseases such as Alzheimer's.

The new tool is able to assess the effects that antioxidant drugs have on diseases, according to the study published in the Cell journal.

Researchers state that for the first time they have been able to see fleeting bursts of superoxide production in mitochondria, known as "superoxide flashes", which they have found increase in frequency when disease is present.

Study author Shey-Shing Sheu, who is professor of pharmacology and physiology at the University of Rochester Medical Centre, comments: "Our study provides a better glimpse of why a cell under assault by disease makes ten times as many reactive oxygen species as the same cell when healthy."

The scientist added that the findings could assist in the future discovery of drugs.

A separate study released earlier this week suggested a gene and protein which cause Parkinson's disease are controlled by genetic mechanisms in blood cells.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the University of Ottawa found that the activity of three genes, which control the major component of haemoglobin in blood, precisely matched the activity of the alpha-synuclein gene, which is seen in elevated levels in Parkinson's patients.

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