dictyNews
Electronic Edition
Volume 49, number 7
March 10 2023

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Abstracts
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The conserved cellular roles of CLN proteins: Novel insights from 
Dictyostelium discoideum

Adam A. N. Remtulla and Robert J. Huber


European Journal of Cell Biology, accepted

The neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCLs), collectively referred to 
as Batten disease, are a group of fatal neurodegenerative disorders 
that primarily affect children. The etiology of Batten disease is 
linked to mutations in 13 genes that encode distinct CLN proteins, 
whose functions have yet to be fully elucidated. The social amoeba 
Dictyostelium discoideum has been adopted as an efficient and 
powerful model system for studying the diverse cellular roles of 
CLN proteins. The genome of D. discoideum encodes several 
homologs of human CLN proteins and a growing body of literature 
supports the conserved roles and networking of CLN proteins in 
D. discoideum and humans. In humans, CLN proteins have diverse 
cellular roles related to autophagy, signal transduction, lipid 
homeostasis, lysosomal ion homeostasis, and intracellular trafficking. 
Recent work also indicates that CLN proteins play an important role 
in protein secretion. Remarkably, many of these findings have found 
parallels in studies with D. discoideum. Accordingly, this review will 
highlight the translatable value of novel work with D. discoideum in 
the field of NCL research and propose further avenues of research 
using this biomedical model organism for studying this devastating 
neurological disease. 


Submitted by Robert Huber [[log in to unmask]]
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[End dictyNews, volume 49, number 7]