"OS cell death trigger defined in rat brains," Harvard study

Researchers at Harvard Medical School have defined a molecular signaling pathway by which oxidative stress triggers cell death, a finding that they believe could pave the way for new drug targets and diagnostic strategies for age-related diseases.

The results, which are reported in the June 2 issue of Cell, detail the molecular chain-of-events linking oxidative stress signals to cell death in neurons from rat brain. The Harvard team focused its attention on the function of a protein called MST, which had been previously implicated in cell death. It found that exposure of brain neurons to oxidative-stress signals stimulates the activity of MST and, once activated, MST instructs neurons to die. The researchers also found a tight link between MST and another family of molecules called FOXO proteins, which turn on genes in the nucleus

"A common molecular denominator in aging and many age-related diseases is oxidative stress," says the study's lead author, Azad Bonni. He added that the discovery of the MST-FOXO biochemical switch mechanism fills a gap in our understanding of how oxidative stress elicits biological responses in neurons, and may include besides cell death, neuronal dysfunction and neuronal recovery.