The degradation pathways of cellular components can be shared by different molecules or selectively replace different substances and organelles. In the brain, synaptic transmission involves signaling pathways for a wide range of molecules, vesicles and receptors that require constant recycling. A proteomic study from the University of Lausanne and the University of Fribourg sheds light on brain autophagy-selective routes in adolescent, adult and aged brains.

Psychedelic drugs could have two distinct overlapping effects based on their affinity for two receptors involved in neuronal plasticity. Scientists at the University of Helsinki have observed that lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocin (a drug isolated from the mushroom Psilocybe mexicana) have an antidepressant effect that is independent of their hallucinogenic outcome. These two different pathways are established through their binding to the tyrosine kinase receptor (TrkB), which has an antidepressant nature, or to the serotonin receptor, with a hallucinogenic activity.

With age, senescent cells become detrimental to tissues. Mayo Clinic scientists have observed this phenomenon in the lung alveoli, where senescent macrophages accumulated in aging tissue and in early stages of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) driven by the Kras oncogene. “We found that the macrophages were present in the earliest stages of the disease. Strategies targeting these cells for elimination or preventing their accumulation would be worthwhile to test in other conditions (assuming we find they occur),” Darren Baker, a Mayo Clinic senescent cell biologist and senior author of the study, told BioWorld.