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Sofie Nyström

Associate Professor, Docent

Prions and plaques

Presentation

My research interest revolves around amyloid proteins, their structural heterogeneity and how these entities are connected to disease. We use test tube- and bioassays to help us understand how proteins of both human and viral origin form amyloid, how amyloids and proteins from different origin interact and how these interactions are dictated by the amyloid structure.

Amyloids

Proteins are the work horses of the cell and are crucial for most of the chemistry and transport ongoing in any living organism. In order to perform its duty, the protein has to be active by acquiring the native state. Most proteins attain a unique three-dimensional fold, others are natively disordered. However, sometimes proteins lose the native state and form a misfolded state. This can be detrimental to the host cell, the host organ and ultimately the host organism. A subclass of misfolded states are known as amyloids. Amyloids are large depositions of well-structured bundles of misfolded proteins. They can be found in any organ of the body and over 40 proteins are known to be associated with amyloid disease in humans.

Virus amyloids

My interest in virus proteins and in particular virus protein amyloids was triggered by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. I was struck by the similarities between symptoms of severe and long Covid and those of several amyloid associated diseases.

Mammalian proteins have evolved to prevent amyloid formation to keep us healthy during our extended lifetime. Viruses on the other hand do not benefit from a proteome with low propensity to form amyloid. And indeed, may virus proteins from different virus families form amyloid.

In our group we use protein science tools as well as in vivo models to investigate how virus derived protein sequences form amyloids in vitro. We also delineate how virus amyloids effect human proteins.

Group members in virus amyloid projects:

Post-doc: Debdeep Chaterjee

Master students: Vilma Odland, Henrik Westman, Ebba Hellstrand

Polymorphism of Amyloids and Prions

My research on amyloid structure focuses on delineating differences in amyloid structure - amyloid polymorphism - using a combination of recombinant expressed proteins, animal models of disease, biophysical techniques and novel fluorescent probes. It is of utter importance to understand the differences between these structures. Prion strains and their characteristics are good examples of the impact of structural polymorphism on disease progression. A molecular understanding of the amyloid structures, what dictates their formation and rearrangement and what amyloid species are most malignant for the host will facilitate design of new diagnostic tools and more adequate and precise treatment regimens.

Prions

The prion work is performed in our P3** lab, situated next door to our regular lab environment.

Some amyloids have infectious properties due to self-propagation. Among the infectious amyloids, prions are the most well-known. Herein native PrP is transformed into new amyloids by interactions with infectious prions. Prions became infamous during the mad cow disease (BSE) epidemic in the 1980ies and the cases of human Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that followed in its trail.

We use recombinant human prion protein (PrP) as well as prion proteins from other mammalian species to delineate molecular mechanisms behind the misfolding of this enigmatic protein. We also use PrP as a substrate protein when investigating possible cross-seeding mechanisms that might be involved in initiating prion disease.

News

Coworkers

Publications

2025

Farjana Parvin, Johan Larsson, Walker Jackson, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström (2025) Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 437, Article 168923 (Article in journal)
Gunilla T. Westermark, Ebba Nystrom, Sofie Nyström, Peter Nilsson, Per Hammarström, Per Westermark (2025) Scientific Reports, Vol. 15, Article 3684 (Article in journal)
Therése Klingstedt, Hamid Shirani, Farjana Parvin, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström, Caroline Graff, Martin Ingelsson, Ruben Vidal, Bernardino Ghetti, Dag Sehlin, Stina Syvanen, Peter Nilsson (2025) Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol. 301, Article 108032 (Article in journal)

2024

Marikken Sundnes, Priyanka Swaminathan, Mikael Lindgren, Ganesh Mohite, Ebba Hellstrand, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström (2024) ChemPhotoChem (Article in journal)
Lovisa Johansson, Alexander Sandberg, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström, Martin Hallbeck (2024) Journal of Neurochemistry, Vol. 168, p. 3308-3322 (Article in journal)

Publications

2025

Farjana Parvin, Johan Larsson, Walker Jackson, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström (2025) Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 437, Article 168923 (Article in journal)
Gunilla T. Westermark, Ebba Nystrom, Sofie Nyström, Peter Nilsson, Per Hammarström, Per Westermark (2025) Scientific Reports, Vol. 15, Article 3684 (Article in journal)
Therése Klingstedt, Hamid Shirani, Farjana Parvin, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström, Caroline Graff, Martin Ingelsson, Ruben Vidal, Bernardino Ghetti, Dag Sehlin, Stina Syvanen, Peter Nilsson (2025) Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol. 301, Article 108032 (Article in journal)

2024

Marikken Sundnes, Priyanka Swaminathan, Mikael Lindgren, Ganesh Mohite, Ebba Hellstrand, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström (2024) ChemPhotoChem (Article in journal)
Lovisa Johansson, Alexander Sandberg, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström, Martin Hallbeck (2024) Journal of Neurochemistry, Vol. 168, p. 3308-3322 (Article in journal)
Farjana Parvin, Samuel Haglund, Bettina Wegenast-Braun, Mathias Jucker, Takashi Saito, Takaomi C. Saido, Peter Nilsson, Per Nilsson, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström (2024) ACS Chemical Neuroscience, Vol. 15, p. 2058-2069 (Article in journal)

2023

Per Hammarström, Sofie Nyström (2023) Prion, Vol. 17, p. 82-104 (Article, review/survey)

2022

Frederic Lerouge, Elodie Ong, Hugo Rositi, Francis Mpambani, Lise-Prune Berner, Radu Bolbos, Cecile Olivier, Francoise Peyrin, Vinu K. Apputukan, Cyrille Monnereau, Chantal Andraud, Frederic Chaput, Yves Berthezene, Bettina Braun, Mathias Jucker, Andreas Åslund, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström, Peter Nilsson, Mikael Lindgren, Marlene Wiart, Fabien Chauveau, Stephane Parola (2022) Nanomedicine, Vol. 17, p. 2173-2187 (Article in journal)
Johan Larsson, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström (2022) Frontiers in Neuroscience, Vol. 16, Article 902600 (Article in journal)
Richeng Jiang, Una Smailovic, Hazal Haytural, Betty M. Tijms, Hao Li, Robert Mihai Haret, Ganna Shevchenko, Gefei Chen, Axel Abelein, Johan Gobom, Susanne Frykman, Misaki Sekiguchi, Ryo Fujioka, Naoto Watamura, Hiroki Sasaguri, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström, Takaomi C. Saido, Vesna Jelic, Stina Syvanen, Henrik Zetterberg, Bengt Winblad, Jonas Bergquist, Pieter Jelle Visser, Per Nilsson (2022) Acta neuropathologica communications, Vol. 10, Article 96 (Article in journal)
Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström (2022) Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 144, p. 8945-8950 (Article in journal)

2021

He Liu, Chae Kim, Tracy Haldiman, Christina J. Sigurdson, Sofie Nyström, Peter Nilsson, Mark L. Cohen, Thomas Wisniewski, Per Hammarström, Jiri G. Safar (2021) Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol. 297, Article 101267 (Article in journal)

2020

Marcus Bäck, Robert Selegård, Yogesh Todarwal, Sofie Nyström, Patrick Norman, Mathieu Linares, Per Hammarström, Mikael Lindgren, Peter Nilsson (2020) ChemistryOpen, Vol. 9, p. 1100-1108 (Article in journal)
Alexander Sandberg, Helen Ling, Marla Gearing, Beth Dombroski, Laura Cantwell, Lea RBibo, Allan Levey, Gerard D. Schellenberg, John Hardy, Nicholas Wood, Josefin Fernius, Sofie Nyström, Samuel Svensson, Stefan Thor, Per Hammarström, Tamas Revesz, Kin Y. Mok (2020) Neurobiology of Disease, Vol. 146, Article 105079 (Article in journal)
Keisuke Yuzu, Mikael Lindgren, Sofie Nyström, Jun Zhang, Wakako Mori, Risako Kunitomi, Terumasa Nagase, Keiichi Iwaya, Per Hammarström, Tamotsu Zako (2020) RSC Advances, Vol. 10, p. 37721-37727 (Article in journal)
Alejandro M. Sevillano, Patricia Aguilar-Calvo, Timothy D. Kurt, Jessica A. Lawrence, Katrin Soldau, Thu H. Nam, Taylor Schumann, Donald P. Pizzo, Sofie Nyström, Biswa Choudhury, Hermann Altmeppen, Jeffrey D. Esko, Markus Glatzel, Peter Nilsson, Christina J. Sigurdson (2020) Journal of Clinical Investigation, Vol. 130, p. 1350-1362 (Article in journal)

2019

Rajesh Mishra, Mathias Elgland, Afshan Begum, Timmy Fyrner, Peter Konradsson, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström (2019) Biochimica et Biophysica Acta - Proteins and Proteomics, Vol. 1867, p. 909-921 (Article in journal)
Maria Jonson, Sofie Nyström, Alexander Sandberg, Marcus Carlback, Wojciech Michno, Jorg Hanrieder, Annika Starkenberg, K. Peter, Peter Nilsson, Stefan Thor, Per Hammarström (2019) Amyloid: Journal of Protein Folding Disorders, Vol. 26, p. 136-137 (Article in journal)
Wojciech Michno, Sofie Nyström, Patrick Wehrli, Tammaryn Lashley, Gunnar Brinkmalm, Laurent Guerard, Stina Syvanen, Dag Sehlin, Ibrahim Kaya, Dimitri Brinet, Peter Nilsson, Per Hammarström, Kaj Blennow, Henrik Zetterberg, Jorg Hanrieder (2019) Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol. 294, p. 6719-6732 (Article in journal)
Jun Zhang, Audun Konsmo, Alexander Sandberg, Xiongyu Wu, Sofie Nyström, Ulrike Obermuller, Bettina M. Wegenast-Braun, Peter Konradsson, Mikael Lindgren, Per Hammarström (2019) Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Vol. 62, p. 2038-2048 (Article in journal)

Organisation