I don’t work on ageing and I don’t work on late-onset neurodegenerative diseases. I know that many users of this site do. If you do, I’d like to exploit your knowledge and insight, so I’m offering this bounty.

A source that I won’t confirm says that the transcript of a gene called LRP1 is particularly sensitive to transcription errors that change its coding sequence under some conditions. I was intrigued by this because: (1) I had previously speculated that factors sensitive to transcription errors might be involved in ageing; and (2) LRP1 levels appear to change with age, and the protein is associated with a host of neurodegenerative diseases. However, it’s difficult to weigh how much credence to give my source. This might be something. It might be nothing.

Ageing can be viewed as a cause of - or contributor to – age-related diseases. It’s context that might inform efforts to treat or prevent these diseases. It has been very heavily studied.

LRP1 is a broadly-expressed receptor for many ligands. It mediates their rapid endocytosis and it mediates signalling. It’s involved in local and systemic clearance. It has also been very heavily studied.

I’d like to know some more about these areas but it's difficult to navigate huge bodies of literature. If you’ve already done so as part of your studies I’d like to take advantage of that.

I will – at my discretion – award 100RSC to researchers with expertise in aging and/or neurodegenerative disease who complete the following series of tasks. One award per person. Awards may be awarded as tips.

Briefly describe what you think is the most exciting current research in aging and/or neurodegenerative disease. This should be a specific molecular and/or physiological process.
Either from memory or through a literature search, identify and briefly assert a way LRP1 is involved in this process. It doesn’t matter whether LRP1’s involvement is central or peripheral.
Upload (to Research Hub) the best most pertinent paper you can find to support your assertion. Paste a link to your upload in your reply.
Briefly describe the most relevant figure from that paper: the experiment(s) it shows; what they mean.

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Question

Challenge for Ageing and/or Neurodegenerative Disease Researchers