An international team led by researchers from the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) has used advanced electron microscopy technologies to capture key cellular mechanisms of stress resistance with near-atomic precision. They were able to show that the protein mHsp60, which helps other proteins to adopt their functional form, remodels its structure under stress conditions and thereby increases its activity to ensure mitochondrial functionality. Their findings may help clarifying the processes leading to severe neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease. The results are published in the journal Science Advances.
You can find the press release here.
Prof. Dr. Rubèn Fernández-Busnadiego, leader of the working group “Structural Cell Biology” at the Department of Neuropathology at the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), and Dr. Kenneth Ehses, postdoc at the Institute for Neuropathologyat UMG and member of the Hertha Sponer College (from left to right). Photos: mbexc/swen pförtner
