Investigating a Toxic Role of Nucleoplasmic Reticulum Expansion in Alzheimer's Disease and Related Tauopathies
Dr. Frost is dedicated to studying fundamental processes in cell biology that drive cell death in aging-related neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease. In the proposed work, early discovery will take place in Drosophila, a model organism that is amenable to genetic manipulation, and is well suited for investigating issues of causality in disease processes. Drosophila work will be complemented with comparative analyses in postmortem human brain tissue to ensure that any findings are relevant to human disease. Dr. Frost has previously shown that that the nuclear envelope, the spherical membrane that contains a cell’s DNA, undergoes significant three-dimensional architectural changes in Alzheimer’s disease. The overall goal of the proposed project is to determine if neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease is caused by changes in nuclear architecture that cause basic nuclear processes to go awry.