Researcher Finds Failsafe Gene That Soaks Up Genetic Mistakes

Caption: Travis Lee Houser, who died at age 93, on May 18, 2018, of Parkinson's disease. He gave up coffee because he'd had five strokes. Drinking five to six six-ounce cups of coffee per day is protective against Parkinson's disease. An experimental pharmaceutical medication for Parkinson's is actually built on a scaffold of caffeine.

Susan Ackerman and her team at the University of California at San Diego discovered the gene, Ankrd16, that acts as a sponge or a failsafe mechanism to stop the release of proteins that causes deposits of harmful aggregates, which are clusters of excessive calcium aggregates that are the hallmark of Parkinson's disease and abnormal plaques in the brain in the case of Alzheimer's disease.

According to Science Daily, "Ankrd16 rescued specific neurons -- called Purkinje cells -- that die when proofreading fails. Without normal levels of Ankrd16, these nerve cells, located in the cerebellum, incorrectly activate the amino acid serine, which is then improperly incorporated into proteins and causes protein aggregation."

Although researchers still don't know the causes of these protein deposits, it is known that abnormal aggregates can occur when cells fail to transmit proper genetic information to proteins. A proofreading or editing problem has occurred in the genes when proteins aggregate. Ackerman and her colleagues first discovered this cause of brain disease more than 10 years ago. Now she and colleagues have identified Ankrd16, the gene that prevents the protein aggregates they originally observed.

Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's are cruel diseases. I lost my father to Parkinson's and my husband lost his mother to Alzheimer's. I'm hopeful that medical/scientific researchers will find cures in the near future. On the Houser side of the family, we have both Parkinson's and melanoma. My paternal uncle, who flew a B-29 bomber during WWII, died on his 26th or 27th birthday of a melanoma on his shoulder. His name was Captain (?) Richard Hugh Houser. I think he was in the Air Force, but I'm not sure.

If you have melanoma in your family, you're four times more at risk for Parkinson's disease and vice versa. It's amazing that my father lived as long as he did, although he was an athlete his entire life until his late eighties and nineties. His oldest brother, Col. Robert Henry Houser, lived to be 92 years old and survived as a Marine at Iwo Jima, Tawara, and Guadalcanal. My paternal grandmother, Ruth Noderer Houser, lived to be 94.