The Hindu : Front Page : Medical discovery opens new vistas

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Wednesday, Dec 03, 2008
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Medical discovery opens new vistas

Special Correspondent

It sheds new light on mechanisms that control proteins in cells

Alterations in IUP levels are associated with Alzheimer’s disease
Mechanisms ensure that proteins are present in the cell

CHENNAI: A discovery at the Medical Research Centre’s (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, sheds new light on the coordinated regulatory mechanisms that control the availability of proteins within cells (protein omeostasis). It will pave the way for new directions in research on areas as diverse as cancer, neurodegeneration, synthetic biology and protein engineering.

Reviewers have commended the research as a “landmark contribution” in the field of intrinsically unstructured proteins (IUPs). IUPs are involved in signalling and coordinating regulatory events in cells, according to information from the press office of the MRC, available on the website. Alterations in IUP levels are associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and cancers such as thyroid cancer and myeloid leukaemia. Understanding how these proteins are regulated could reveal ways to tackle these widespread and often fatal conditions. The IUPs make up more than a third of all proteins in our cells.

Dr. M. Madan Babu, group leader, and Dr. Jörg Gsponer, research scientist, at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, explained that the aim was to discover the strategies that organisms had evolved to maintain the right levels of IUPs in cells.

In the process, they found that multiple control mechanisms during the process that produces proteins from genes (transcription and translation) ensure that unstructured proteins are present in low levels and for short periods in the cell. This control minimises the harmful effects of IUPs and at the same time permits their vital contribution to the functioning of the cell.

The scientists are quoted as saying that the new and comprehensive system-wide view of regulation of IUPs will help in identifying the intervention strategies to manipulate protein homeostasis and enable the study of many diseases in new ways.

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