An estimated 3,600 molecular switches in the human body have recently been discovered by a team of scientists from the University of Copenhagen and the Max Planck Institute based in Germany.These switches, which serve as protein regulators, may one day be recognised as key factors to the aging of human beings and the beginning stages as well as the treatment or cures for disease like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. Details on the team’s findings have recently been featured in the July 2009 edition of the medical journal, Science.
Led by Prof Matthias Mann of Novo Nordisk Center for Protein Research at the MP Institute for Biochemistry and the University of Copenhagen in Germany, the team of scientists has discovered approximately 3600 acetylation switches in 1,750 separate proteins.
Prof Mann says, “This is more than just a technological achievement, it has also expanded the number of known acetylation switches by a factor of six, and it gives us for the first time a comprehensive insight into this type of protein modification.”
Small molecules, or switches, are added to proteins which regulate how these proteins behave, in turn coordinating the numerous day-to-day functions they are able to perform. Acetylation is crucial for the normal functioning of a cell. The ageing process and development of diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and cancer can be directly influenced by defective protein regulation.
Prof Mann continues, “With the new mapping, we can now begin to study and describe how acetylation switches respond to medications that could repair the defects on them. It can have a major impact on medical care,” and he adds that promising outcomes have already begun to show in medications that correct damaged protein regulation in the treatment of cancer.
Cooperating proteins
The team of scientists has also determined that acetylation is modified predominantly in proteins that work together and that these switches have a much bigger affect on the function of an organism that what was previously thought. E.g. the function of Cdc28, an important growth protein in yeast, is affected when an acetylation switch is added, which can influence the organism’s ability to live.
The results of the team’s research were published in the 17 July 2009 edition of Science.
Source: University of Copenhagen
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