Slow-moving shell of water can make Parkinson’s proteins ’stickier’

Water - which makes up the majority of every cell in the body - plays a key role in how proteins, including those associated with Parkinson's disease, fold, misfold, or clump together, according to a new study. The failure to look at the whole cellular environment has been limiting the field, which may be why we haven-t yet got an effective treatment for Parkinson's disease Gabriele Kaminski Schierle When attempting to discover potential treatments for protein misfolding diseases, researchers have primarily focused on the structure of the proteins themselves. However, researchers led by the University of Cambridge have shown that a thin shell of water is key to whether a protein begins to clump together, or aggregate, forming the toxic clusters which eventually kill brain cells. Using a technique known as Terahertz spectroscopy, the researchers have shown that the movement of the water-based shell surrounding a protein can determine whether that protein aggregates or not. When the shell moves slowly, proteins are more likely to aggregate, and when the shell moves quickly, proteins are less likely to aggregate. The rate of movement of the shell is altered in the presence of certain ions, such as salt molecules, which are commonly used in the buffer solutions used to test new drug candidates. The significance of the water shell, known as the hydration or solvation shell, in the folding and function of proteins has been strongly disputed in the past.