March 28, 1994 - March 28, 2027

  • Date:28TuesdayJune 2022

    Special guest seminar with Dr. Or Shemesh

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    Time
    09:30 - 10:30
    Title
    Infectious Neuroscience - Do Common Pathogens Play a Part in Neurodegeneration?
    Location
    Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research
    Botnar Auditorium
    Lecturer
    Dr. Or Shemesh
    Department of Neurobiology & Bioengineering University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA
    Organizer
    Department of Molecular Neuroscience
    Contact
    AbstractShow full text abstract about Herpes Simplex Virus 1 (HSV-1) is a usual suspect when it co...»
    Herpes Simplex Virus 1 (HSV-1) is a usual suspect when it comes to Alzheimer's disease (AD), and its DNA and RNA were found in the brains and serological samples of AD patients. Such molecular presence of HSV-1 in AD is especially intriguing as HSV-1 virions are rarely detected in AD brains. To follow the molecular footsteps detected, we imaged viral proteins in postmortem human AD brains at superior resolution using expansion microscopy, a tissue manipulation method that physically expands the samples by a factor of 4.5x, allowing a 40 nm imaging resolution, and immunolabeled herpetic proteins, AD pathologies and cell markers. We found an abundance of herpetic proteins, previously undetectable with standard methods, across large brain areas. Importantly, we found that HSV-1 proteins strongly co-localized with AD pathologies. Consequently, we hypothesized that expression of HSV-1 proteins during latency may be linked to AD pathology. We are now in the process of characterizing the HSV-1 proteome in AD brains by imaging key proteins in expanded AD brain slices and examining their colocalization with AD pathologies across brain areas and disease stages. As a complementary system to the fixed human brain slices, we are exposing live human brain organoids, to HSV-1, and imaging the relationships between viral proteins and the formation of AD pathologies via expansion microscopy. Pathogens may be triggers of immune responses driving AD; this study would shed light on one common pathogen, HSV-1, while serving as a framework to unveiling molecular causation between infectious agents and AD hallmarks.
    Lecture