(Press-News.org) SPOKANE, Wash. - Pharmaceutical sciences researchers at Washington State University have discovered a protein's previously unknown role in cell division.
The well known protein ATF5, or Activating Transcription Factor 5, controls how often specific genes are expressed, or copied from DNA. ATF5 regulates genes that control cell survival.
But the research team has identified a part this protein is playing that is not related to its transcription factor role. Within the part of the cell called the centrosome, ATF5 is also acting as a structural protein.
Structural proteins perform much like their name suggests: they maintain cell shape and make up connective tissues like cartilage and bone.
Telling a cell biologist that a transcription factor is doubling as a structural protein is like telling your neighbor you are building a backyard shop on a foundation of pudding. The scientist--and your neighbor--wouldn't believe you. It's never been seen before.
"This is an eye opener for people working in the field," said David Liu , a member of the research team.
He is an associate professor at the WSU College of Pharmacy and corresponding author on the research, to be published in the July 30 issue of Cell.
Liu and five pharmaceutical sciences colleagues at the WSU Health Sciences campus in Spokane teamed with scientists from Penn State, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University and the University of Texas to complete the study that was funded in part by the American Cancer Society and the U.S. Department of Defense.
Cells studied include ovary and breast cancer and glioma (brain tumor).
The discovery provides the first evidence of structural interactions within the centrosome and the role of ATF5, which was "strategically located within the centrosome and playing a totally different role than we previously understood," said Liu.
The centrosome is the cell component vital to successful cell division and duplication, which affect a wide spectrum of larger processes from healing to cancer growth to fighting off disease.
"Failure of centrosome duplication can result in malformation of mitotic spindles, causing a variety of genomic instabilities," said Liu. Malformed cells contribute to tumor development and conditions such as dwarfism, ciliopathy, microcephaly and problems with cilia movement.
Cilia work like antenna and communicate with the rest of the cell to move it toward nutrients, but knowledge is limited on how cilia work, said Liu. This discovery helps connect the dots, and Liu is hoping this research will expand understanding of cell survival.
"Cell survival is fundamental and affects all of our cells, with broad implication across many types of disease. Knowing how to correct a defect, we have the hope to treat disease," he said.
In a previous study, Liu tagged the ATF5 protein with green dye, a fluorescent protein produced by jellyfish, and discovered ATF5's presence in an area of the cell that didn't seem to make sense. He wanted to show that the presence of ATF5 outside its "normal place" was irrelevant so he could get back to studying what he was originally focused on: ATF5's role as a transcription factor.
"After finding this, I wanted to disprove it. But the more I worked on it, the more it was apparent it had real purpose," said Liu. "Ultimately, it became a big discovery."
INFORMATION:
Knee pain in older adults, often caused by osteoarthritis, usually means more visits to the doctor and also can be a harbinger of disability.
A study led by Daniel White, assistant professor of physical therapy at the University of Delaware, found that an intensive regimen of regular exercise and a healthy diet might reduce the short-term onset of knee pain for overweight adults with Type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Published in Arthritis Care and Research, White's article "Can an Intensive Diet and Exercise Program Prevent Knee Pain Among Overweight Adults at High Risk'' ...
New research has revealed abrupt warming, that closely resembles the rapid man-made warming occurring today, has repeatedly played a key role in mass extinction events of large animals, the megafauna, in Earth's past.
Using advances in analysing ancient DNA, radiocarbon dating and other geologic records an international team led by researchers from the University of Adelaide and the University of New South Wales (Australia) have revealed that short, rapid warming events, known as interstadials, recorded during the last ice age or Pleistocene (60,000-12,000 years ago) ...
A multi-institutional team of researchers has identified an apparently successful treatment for a genetic immune disorder that causes a multitude of health problems - ranging from infections, diabetes, lung disease and the body's immune system attacking and damaging healthy tissues.
Led by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the researchers report in the July 24 edition of Science a promising therapy for a disorder called LRBA deficiency. They tested the drug abatacept - already FDA-approved ...
This news release is available in Japanese.
The discovery of a four-legged fossil of a snake hints that this suborder may have evolved from burrowing, rather than marine, ancestors. The unique four-legged specimen, found in Brazil's Crato Formation, provides us with more insight into how these creatures transitioned into the sleek, slithering reptiles that we are familiar with - and often fearful of - today. By analyzing both the genetics and the morphological features of this species compared to other known snake species, and giving different weight to ...
This news release is available in Japanese.
In the race to produce highly stretchable conductors, researchers have developed a new technique that aligns sheets of layered carbon nanotubes along stretched rubber cores, creating an extremely flexible conductive fiber. From pacemaker leads to flexible displays and batteries, there is a growing need for fibers that don't lose their conductivity upon repeated stretching, twisting or flexing. The challenge has been to create a conductive material that is highly elastic, but that maintains a high level of ...
Scientists have identified a critical function of what they believe to be schizophrenia's "Rosetta Stone" gene that could hold the key to decoding the function of all genes involved in the disease.
The breakthrough has revealed a vulnerable period in the early stages of the brain's development that researchers hope can be targeted for future efforts in reversing schizophrenia.
In a paper published today in the journal Science, neuroscientists from Cardiff University describe having uncovered the previously unknown influence of a gene in ensuring healthy brain development.
The ...
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Do you have gender "faultlines" in your organization? New research suggests that such fissures appear when gender differences solidify into cliques. And this tends to occur when members of one gender share other demographic traits and professional interests, such as age, job responsibilities and time served. For example, the men in one organization might be young techies, while the women might tend to be middle-aged marketers. Or vice versa. What's important is that several qualities align in addition to gender, creating a stronger sense of in-group ...
ANN ARBOR--A new University of Michigan study finds that teens using marijuana for medical reasons are 10 times more likely to say they are hooked on marijuana than youth who get marijuana illegally.
The study is the first to report on a nationally representative sample of 4,394 high school seniors and their legal or illegal medical marijuana use as it relates to other drug use. In the study, 48 teens had medical marijuana cards, but 266 teens used medical marijuana without a card.
Carol Boyd, the study's lead author and professor at the U-M School of Nursing, said ...
MADISON, Wis. -- University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have developed a new approach to structuring the catalysts used in essential reactions in the chemical and energy fields. The advance offers a pathway for industries to wean themselves off of platinum, one of the scarcest metals in the earth's crust.
In an effort to reduce the catalysis world's dependence on this highly reactive and versatile -- but also quite expensive -- metal, UW-Madison chemical engineering Professor Manos Mavrikakis and his collaborators have turned to the nanoscale structure of particles, ...
MADISON, Wis. -- If you have two working eyes, you are live streaming two images of the world into your brain. Your brain combines the two to produce a view of the world that appears as though you had a single eye -- like the Cyclops from Greek mythology.
And that's a good thing, as the combination of the two images makes for a much more useful impression of the world. With one eye shut, catching a ball or parking a car become far more difficult.
"If you're reaching out with your hand, you want to aim not at where things appear to be, but where they are," says Bas Rokers, ...
