Protein Fibers, a Hallmark of Alzheimer’s, Spotted Making Deliveries to Sperm

Unexpectedly, a kind of protein that is usually linked with diseases in the brain may play a vital role in semen, helping shepherd genetic material into sperm cells, scientists at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute report today in the research journal Molecular Cell. Dr. Fitzpatrick, an expert on amyloids in brain research, wondered if those fibrils could also help materials naturally in the body enter sperm: specifically, the genetic molecule RNA, which helps turn instructions encoded in DNA into protein molecules. Scientists knew that seminal fluid contains lots of small RNAs, thought to play a major role in what genes are active...