Researchers show that protein misfolding can be mitigated by an engineered version of a yeast chaperone protein

A team of researchers that included graduate student Bryan Martinez and Drs. Guy and Kim Caldwell have shown that the Hsp 104 chaperone protein from yeast can be engineered to refold a variety of misfolded proteins, and mitigates some of the neurodegenerative effects of protein misfolding in a C. elegans model of Parkinson’s Disease. The work appeared in the journal Cell.