Mutations in DJ-1, a human gene with homologues in organisms from all kingdoms of life, have been shown to be associated with autosomal recessive, early onset Parkinson's disease (PARK7). We report here the three-dimensional structure of the DJ-1 protein, determined at a resolution of 1.1 A by x-ray crystallography. The chain fold of DJ-1 resembles those of a bacterial protein, PfpI, that has b...

BACKGROUND Mitochondrial dysfunction and degradation takes a central role in current paradigms of neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease (PD). Loss of DJ-1 function is a rare cause of familial PD. Although a critical role of DJ-1 in oxidative stress response and mitochondrial function has been recognized, the effects on mitochondrial dynamics and downstream consequences remain to be determine...

BACKGROUND Endometriosis is an estrogen-dependent disease causing pelvic pain and infertility in 10% of reproductive-aged women. Despite a long history of the disease the pathogenesis of endometriosis is poorly understood. It is known that the expression of several proteins is either up or down regulated during endometriosis, but their precise role remains to be determined. DJ-1 is one such pro...

DJ-1 is an oncoprotein that promotes survival of cancer cells through anti-apoptosis. However, DJ-1 also plays a role in regulating IL-1β expression, and whether inflammatory microenvironment built by dysregulated DJ-1 affects cancer progression is still unclear. This study thus aimed to compare the metastatic abilities of melanoma cells in wild-type (WT) and DJ-1 knockout (KO) mice, and to che...

A finite sequence of real numbers {d0, d1, · · · , dm} is said to be unimodal if there exists an index 0 ≤ j ≤ m such that d0 ≤ d1 ≤ · · · ≤ dj and dj ≥ dj+1 ≥ · · · ≥ dm. A polynomial is said to be unimodal if its sequence of coefficients is unimodal. The sequence {d0, d1, · · · , dm} with dj ≥ 0 is said to be logarithmically concave (or log concave for short) if dj+1dj−1 ≤ dj for 1 ≤ j ≤ m − ...

This article reports changes in the striatal non-synaptic mitochondrial proteome of DJ-1, Parkin, and PINK1 knockout (KO) rats at 3 months of age. DJ-1, Parkin, and PINK1 mutations cause autosomal-recessive parkinsonism. It is thought that loss of function of these proteins contributes to the onset and pathogenesis of Parkinson׳s disease (PD). As DJ-1, Parkin, and PINK1 have functions in the re...

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have been linked to a wide variety of pathologies, including obesity and diabetes, but ROS also act as endogenous signalling molecules, regulating numerous biological processes. DJ-1 is one of the most evolutionarily conserved proteins across species, and mutations in DJ-1 have been linked to some cases of Parkinson's disease. Here we show that DJ-1 maintains cellu...

Elderly patients often suffer from multiple age-related diseases. Here we show that the expression of DJ-1, an antioxidant protein with reduced expression in the central nervous system of patients with Parkinson's disease, is reduced in pancreatic islets of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). In contrast, under non-diabetic conditions, DJ-1 expression increases in mouse and human isl...

Ischemia postconditioning (IpostC) is an effective way to alleviate ischemia and reperfusion injury; however, the protective effects seem to be impaired in candidates with diabetes mellitus. To gain deep insight into this phenomenon, we explored the role of DJ-1, a novel oncogene, that may exhibit powerful antioxidant capacity in postconditioning cardioprotection in a rat model of myocardial is...

DJ-1 (PARK7) is a gene linked to autosomal recessive Parkinson disease (PD). We showed previously that DJ-1 loss sensitizes neurons in models of PD and stroke. However, the biochemical mechanisms underlying this protective role are not completely clear. Here, we identify Von Hippel Lindau (VHL) protein as a critical DJ-1-interacting protein. We provide evidence that DJ-1 negatively regulates VH...