Delmic Cryo-ET Journal Club Series: Using cryo-ET to understand Parkinson's disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease. About 10% of patients show a clear family history and mutations in the leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) are the most frequent cause of familial PD.

A major barrier to understanding the mechanism of LRRK2 is the lack of structural information for the protein. In this journal club we are going to discuss the article that tackled this barrier using correlative light and electron microscopy, in situ cryo-electron tomography, and sub-tomogram analysis. The authors reveal a 14-Å structure of LRRK2 and show its association with microtubules. The structure presented does not only provide insight to understand the pathogenic state of familial PD, but is also the first step towards designing improved LRRK2 kinase inhibitors.

Interested in this topic? Don't miss the change to talk about it with our application specialists Dr. Caspar Jonker and Marit Smeets! You may prepare by checking out the paper before joining us.