A researcher at the University of Bergen in Norway is among the first scientists to give a detailed description of the protein clusters associated with Huntington’s disease.
A Huntington’s disease is a fatal disease caused by an inherited mutation that causes a protein to form unnatural clumps, which play a role in the development of disease.
Until now, scientists didn’t have a good understanding of what they looked like at the atomic level.
However, together with an international team of researchers, Markus Miettinen combined advanced computer simulations and experimental methods and managed to visualize the first detailed image of these clusters.
“We use advanced computer simulations to imitate the behavior of these molecules in the most realistic way possible. Our work bridges the gap between simulations and experiments, and gives us insights into data that would otherwise be difficult to interpret,” explained researcher Markus Miettinen.
“In addition to new information about Huntington’s disease, we have developed tools that make molecular simulations more accessible to researchers around the world”, added the specialist, quoted by .
This type of protein clumping is not only known in the context of Huntington’s disease. It is also linked to other neurological diseases, namely Alzheimer e Parkinson.
The was published at the end of last year in Nature Communications.
