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US 8,133,679 B2Granted
Methods of identifying agents that diminish cellular toxicity associated with an α-synuclein polypeptide of Parkinson's disease in yeast
AssigneesWhitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, University of Washington
InventorsPaul J. Muchowski, Susan L. Lindquist, Tiago Outeiro
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Abstract
Methods of screening candidate agents to identify lead compounds for the development of therapeutic agents for the treatment of a neurodegenerative disease, such as Huntington's Disease and Parkinson's Disease and methods for identifying a mutation in, or changes in expression of, a gene associated with neurodegenerative disease, such as Huntington's Disease and Parkinson's Disease, are provided.
Claims10
A method of identifying an agent for diminishing cellular toxicity associated with an α synuclein polypeptide of Parkinson's disease, comprising:
- contacting a yeast cell with a candidate agent, wherein the yeast cell expresses an α synuclein polypeptide and the cell does not express an endogenous wild-type gene, wherein the absence of the endogenous wild-type gene expression causes or enhances toxicity associated with the presence of the α synuclein polypeptide, and wherein the endogenous wild-type gene is selected from vps24 and vps28;
- and
- determining whether the candidate agent reduces toxicity of the α synuclein polypeptide, wherein the method comprises comparing the viability of the cell contacted with the candidate agent with the viability of a control cell not contacted with the candidate agent.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.