Professor Edwin Chan (3rd right, back row), Dr Stephen Chen (3rd left, back row) and research team members at CUHK’s School of Life Sciences, and Mr Lui Man-lam (1st left, front row) and Ms Jintana Sae Sow (1st right, back row) from the HKNMDA, pose for a group photo with ALS patients Mr Wu and Mr Sze (middle and 1st right, front row). (PHOTO / PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

HONG KONG — The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) announced on Monday that its research team, collaborating with the University of Oxford, recently uncovered a novel molecular mechanism that leads to the pathogenesis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

According to researchers from CUHK, ALS is an adult-onset neurodegenerative disease that impacts the brain and spinal cord, causing muscle weakness, loss of coordination and ultimately respiratory failure. To date, ALS remains incurable.

The team demonstrated that the function of a transcriptional factor YY1 is perturbed in ALS patient spinal motor neurons

To identify ALS therapeutic targets, the research team led by Edwin Chan Ho-yin, a professor from the School of Life Sciences at CUHK, studied the underlying mechanisms of gene transcriptional control in ALS.

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The team demonstrated that the function of a transcriptional factor YY1 is perturbed in ALS patient spinal motor neurons, which subsequently induces a pathway and consequently leads to neuronal cell death. This offers additional mechanistic insights into ALS pathogenesis.

Chan said that elucidating the underlying disease mechanisms will not only allow researchers to better understand ALS pathogenesis but, more importantly, will also direct the development of new drug candidates against this devastating neurodegenerative condition.

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The research findings have been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.