The aggregation of specific proteins is hypothesized to underlie several degenerative diseases, collectively called amyloid disorders. However, the mechanistic connection between the process of protein aggregation and tissue degeneration is not yet fully understood. Here, we review current and emerging strategies to ameliorate aggregation-associated degenerative disorders, with a focus on disease-modifying strategies that prevent the formation of and/or eliminate protein aggregates. Persuasive pharmacologic and genetic evidence now support protein aggregation as the cause of post-mitotic tissue dysfunction or loss. However, a more detailed understanding of the factors that trigger and sustain aggregate formation, as well as the structure-activity relationships underlying proteotoxicity are needed to develop future disease-modifying therapies.

SUMMARY Kinesin and dynein are opposite-polarity microtubule motors that drive the tightly regulated transport of a variety of cargoes. Both motors can bind to cargo but their overall composition on axonal vesicles and whether this composition directly modulates transport activity, is unknown. Here we characterize the intracellular transport and steady state motor subunit composition of mammalian prion protein (PrPC) vesicles. We identify Kinesin-1 and cytoplasmic dynein as major PrPC vesicle motor complexes, and show that their activities are tightly coupled. Regulation of normal retrograde transport by Kinesin-1 is independent of dynein-vesicle attachment, and requires the vesicle association of a complete Kinesin-1 heavy and light chain holoenzyme. Furthermore, motor subunits remain stably associated with stationary as well as with moving vesicles. Our data suggest a coordination model where PrPC vesicles maintain a stable population of associated motors whose activity is modulated by regulatory factors instead of by structural changes to motor-cargo associations.

In early Caenorhabditis elegans embryos, asymmetric cell divisions produce descendants with asynchronous cell cycle times. To investigate the relationship between cell cycle regulation and pattern formation, we have identified a collection of embryonic-lethal mutants in which cell divisions are delayed and cell fate patterns are abnormal. In div (for division delayed) mutant embryos, embryonic cell divisions are delayed but remain asynchronous. Some div mutants produce well-differentiated cell types, but they frequently lack the endodermal and mesodermal cell fates normally specified by a transcriptional activator called SKN-1. We show that mislocalization of PIE-1, a negative regulator of SKN-1, prevents the specification of endoderm and mesoderm in div-1 mutant embryos. In addition to defects in the normally asymmetric distribution of PIE-1, div mutants also exhibit other losses of asymmetry during early embryonic cleavages. The daughters of normally asymmetric divisions are nearly equal in size, and cytoplasmic P-granules are not properly localized to germline precursors in div mutant embryos. Thus the proper timing of cell division appears to be important for multiple aspects of asymmetric cell division. One div gene, div-1, encodes the B subunit of the DNA polymerase alpha-primase complex. Reducing the function of other DNA replication genes also results in a delayed division phenotype and embryonic lethality. Thus the other div genes we have identified are likely to encode additional components of the DNA replication machinery in C. elegans.

Mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequences were analysed to resolve the phylogeography and population genetic structure of Atlantic and Mediterranean populations of green turtles (Chelonia mydas). Analysis of sequence variation over 487 base pairs of the control (D-loop) region identified 18 haplotypes among 147 individuals from nine nesting populations. Pairwise comparisons of haplotype frequencies distinguished most nesting colonies, indicating significant genetic differentiation among rookeries and a strong propensity for natal homing behaviour by nesting females. Comparison of control region sequence data to earlier restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) data for the same individuals demonstrates approximately a sixfold higher substitution rate in the 5' end of the control region. The sequence data provide higher resolution both in terms of the number of mtDNA genotype variants and the phylogeographic relationships detected within the Atlantic region, and reveal a gene genealogy that distinguishes two groups of haplotypes corresponding to (i) the western Caribbean and Mediterranean, and (ii) eastern Caribbean, South Atlantic and West Africa. The data suggest that phylogeographic patterns in the Atlantic Ocean may be interpreted in terms of female nest site fidelity and episodic dispersal events. The distribution of mtDNA haplotypes within the region is thus explained by the geological and climatic alternations (glacial and interglacial) over the last million years.