Neuron & cell Rep: prion like special protein or

July 6, 2015 / BIOON / -- recently published in the international journal Neuron and cell In two research papers on reports, researchers from Columbia University Medical Center revealed the secret of maintaining long-term memory in the brain through research In the paper, researchers found that prion like protein is very important for maintaining long-term memory in mice and other mammals Prion like protein is a protein similar to prion, which can be triggered by prion Kuget's disease and mad cow disease When long-term memory is formed in the brain, new connections will be established between neurons to help store memory, but this physical connection must be maintained as a kind of memory With the passage of time, these memories will dissipate Many researchers are currently looking for molecules that can maintain long-term memory, but there is no clue at present In this study, research The memory molecules we found are the normal version of prion protein Prion is a kind of special infectious protein Unlike other proteins, prion can self proliferate and induce other proteins to take on the shape of replaceable When prions are formed in cells, especially in neurons, they will cause cell damage by forming aggregates Prion aggregates have high stability, and they will accumulate in the infected tissues, causing tissue damage and cell death The dead cells will release prion protein, which will be absorbed by other cells, and then infect prion Prion, as an abnormal protein, will cause mad cow disease At the same time, it is also related to a variety of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease On the contrary, functional prion proteins play an important physiological role in cells, but they do not cause diseases Kausik Si, researcher, said that we have identified functional prions in conch and found that these prions can maintain long-term memory Recently, through laboratory research, researchers found a similar prion protein called cpeb3 in mice also has the function of maintaining long-term memory Then the researchers revealed how the cpeb3 protein in neurons can maintain long-term memory, similar to the prions that cause diseases There are two types of functional prion particles: soluble and easy to aggregate When the body forms long-term memory, new synaptic connections will be formed, and then the soluble prions in the synapses will be transformed into aggregative The aggregation of prions opens up the process of protein synthesis that maintains long-term memory in the brain With this aggregation, the long-term memory in the brain will be maintained, and prion aggregation will be renewed and regenerated by continuously converting soluble prions into aggregation proteins Finally, researchers say that there may be proteins with similar functions in the human body to maintain the long-term memory of the brain, of course, more research is needed later To confirm, the long-term memory process is a very complex process, and in its process also involves many other regulatory components, so the researchers will look for some new components which are very important for the maintenance of long-term memory function later.