The roles of calcium-permeable AMPA receptors and RNA editing in MND

Description:

What this research means to you: The chemical glutamate is responsible for transmitting signals from one neurone to the next. However, in MND, the signals received by motor neurones seem to become too “loud”, hence the motor neurones get damaged. This project will investigate a theory as to why motor neurones become over-sensitive to the glutamate signal, with the ultimate aim of suggesting a new treatment strategy.

The researchers explain in more detail: Toxicity from excess amounts of glutamate has long been suspected of contributing to neurone death in MND. The effects of excess glutamate may be particularly damaging to motor neurones due to the fact that they appear to possess more of a particular form of the “signal receiver”, or receptor, through which glutamate exerts its effects. A recent important finding from a Japanese lab indicates that this form of the receptor arises because of a mistake in the editing of the “working copy” of the genetic instructions that are used to build the receptor. This problem might be exacerbated by the inflammation that is known to occur in MND. If this is the case, developing drugs to specifically block the inappropriate form of glutamate receptor, in combination with drugs that dampen down inflammation, may prove an effective strategy. This project will use post-mortem tissue, donated by people who have died from MND, to confirm whether or not the mis-editing occurs in MND.