PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Researchers identify new protein target to control chronic inflammation

Mass General Brigham findings suggest new avenues for studying and treating inflammation in the future

2025-07-02
(Press-News.org) Chronic inflammation occurs when the immune system is stuck in attack-mode, sending cell after cell to defend and repair the body for months or even years. Diseases associated with chronic inflammation, like arthritis or cancer or autoimmune disorders, weigh heavily on human health—and experts anticipate their incidence is on the rise. A new study by investigators from Mass General Brigham identified a protein called WSTF that could be targeted to block chronic inflammation. Crucially, this strategy would not interfere with acute inflammation, allowing the immune system to continue responding appropriately to short-term threats, such as viral or bacterial infection. Results are published in Nature.

“Chronic inflammatory diseases cause a great deal of suffering and death, but we still have much to learn about what drives chronic inflammation and how to treat it,” said senior author Zhixun Dou, PhD, of the Center for Regenerative Medicine and Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research at Massachusetts General Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. “Our findings help us separate chronic and acute inflammation, as well as identify a new target for stopping chronic inflammation that results from aging and disease.”

Using chronically inflamed human cells, the researchers found that WSTF interacts with other proteins inside cell nuclei, which prompts its excretion and degradation. Since WSTF is responsible for concealing pro-inflammatory genes, this nucleus-eviction reveals those genes and, in turn, amplifies inflammation. They confirmed that WSTF loss could promote inflammation in mouse models of aging and cancer. They also found, using human cells, that WSTF loss only occurred in chronic inflammation, not acute. Using these findings, the researchers designed a WSTF-restoring therapeutic to suppress chronic inflammation and observed preliminary success in mouse models of aging, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), and osteoarthritis.

The researchers went further to examine tissue samples from patients with MASH or osteoarthritis. They found that WSTF is lost in the livers of patients with MASH, but not in the livers of healthy donors.  Using cells from the knees of osteoarthritis patients undergoing joint replacement surgery, they showed that WSTF-restoring therapeutic reduces chronic inflammation from the inflamed knee cells.  These findings highlight the potential of developing new treatments targeting WSTF to combat chronic inflammatory diseases.

Further research is needed to validate the therapeutic potential of WSTF restoration in broader settings and to develop specific strategies to target WSTF. Additionally, the findings suggest other similar proteins may be involved in chronic inflammation, opening a promising new avenue for studying and treating inflammation in the future.

 

Authorship: In addition to Dou, Mass General Brigham authors include Yu Wang, Yaosi Liang, Marc Samuel Sherman, Yanxin Xu, Angelique Onorati, Kathleen E. Corey, Ana Maria Cabral Burkard, Chia-Kang Ho, Ulrike Rieprecht, Tara O'Brien, Murat Cetinbas, Ruslan I. Sadreyev, Robert E. Kingston, and Wolfram Goessling. Additional authors include Vinay V. Eapen, Athanasios Kournoutis, Xianting Li, Xiaoting Zhou, Kuo Du, Jing Xie, Hui Zhang, Raquel Maeso-Díaz, Xinyi Ma, Lu Wang, Jihe Liu, Corey Bretz, Aaron P. Havas, Zhuo Zhou, Shannan J. Ho Sui, Srinivas Vinod Saladi, Peter D. Adams, Anna Mae Diehl, Benjamin Alman, Zhenyu Yue, Xiao-Fan Wang, and Terje Johansen.

Paper cited: Wang, Y et al. “WSTF nuclear autophagy regulates chronic but not acute inflammation” Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09234-1

###

About Mass General Brigham

Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals. For more information, please visit massgeneralbrigham.org.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Increasing contingency management incentives will help more patients recover from addiction

2025-07-02
Early recovery from drug addiction to opioids and stimulants is physically and mentally demanding, and a long road to recovery. “During the early stages of addiction recovery there is typically not much that is positive for patients,” shares behavioral health counselor Carla J. Rash, Ph.D. of UConn School of Medicine. “But Contingency Management is an effective, behavioral tool bringing some early-on positivity to a patient’s addiction recovery treatment plan until the positive benefits of their medication and body’s natural recovery kicks-in.” Rash adds, “Essentially, ...

Changes in the blood could protect against Alzheimer’s disease

2025-07-02
A study published in Cell Stem Cell reveals that some mutations in blood stem cells might help protect against late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. A team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine discovered that both a mouse model and people carrying blood stem cells with mutations in the gene TET2, but not in the gene DNMT3A, had a lower risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease. Their study proposes a mechanism that can protect against the disease and opens new avenues for potential strategies to control the emergence ...

New tool allows researchers to track assembly of cells’ protein-making machines

2025-07-02
Proteins are the infinitely varied chemicals that make cells work, and science has a pretty good idea how they are made. But a critical aspect underlying the machinery of protein manufacture has long been hidden inside a blobby cellular structure called the nucleolus. Now, a team of Princeton engineers have developed a technique to peer inside the nucleolus and reveal this hidden system of creation. Previous methods required researchers to break open the cell and destroy most of its structures, resulting in minimal access to the blob’s inner workings. By tracking the movement of RNA molecules inside the nucleolus using advanced imaging and genomics techniques, ...

New genetic marker linked to improved survival with immunotherapy in ovarian and other cancers 

2025-07-02
Ovarian clear cell carcinoma is difficult to treat, and treatment options are limited  Patients with specific PPP2R1A mutations in their tumors survived significantly longer after immunotherapy treatment  Targeting PPP2R1A may improve responses even further according to laboratory studies   PPP2R1A is an important predictive biomarker and possible treatment target for multiple cancer types, study found  HOUSTON, JULY 2, 2025 ― Patients with ovarian clear cell carcinoma (OCCC) whose tumors have specific mutations in the PPP2R1A gene were found ...

AI that thinks like us – and could help explain how we think

2025-07-02
Researchers at Helmholtz Munich have developed an artificial intelligence model that can simulate human behavior with remarkable accuracy. The language model, called Centaur, was trained on more than ten million decisions from psychological experiments – and makes decisions in ways that closely resemble those of real people. This opens new avenues for understanding human cognition and improving psychological theories. For decades, psychology has aspired to explain the full complexity of human thought. Yet traditional models could either offer a transparent ...

The imitation game – why are some species better at fooling predators than others?

2025-07-02
Experts from the University of Nottingham have created life-size 3D-printed insect models to explore how some species trick predators into thinking they're more dangerous than they really are — and avoid being eaten as a result. In the new study, published in Nature, a team of experts, led by Dr Tom Reader and Dr Christopher Taylor in the School of Life Sciences, used 3D printed models to investigate Batesian mimicry – a phenomenon where a harmless species evolves to resemble a harmful species, fooling ...

Gas leakage triggers wound healing in plants

2025-07-02
Scientists at the University of Helsinki discovered how plants heal their protective outer layer, the periderm. The diffusion of ethylene and oxygen through a wound triggers repair – a finding with potential implications for crop resilience, and food preservation. All living organisms rely on protective barrier tissues to shield them from the environment. In plants, the periderm which forms the tough outer cork layer plays this role, helping to prevent water loss and block harmful microbes, for example in potato skin and tree bark. But what happens ...

Forging a novel therapeutic path for patients with Rett Syndrome using AI

2025-07-02
Forging a novel therapeutic path for patients with Rett Syndrome using AI AI-enabled drug discovery approach identified potentially game-changing treatment which has been advanced from the lab bench to an FDA Orphan Drug Designation in record time By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Rett syndrome is a devastating rare genetic childhood disorder primarily affecting girls. Merely 1 out of 10,000 girls are born with it and much fewer boys. It is caused by mutations in the MeCP2 gene on the X chromosome, leading to a spectrum of cognitive and physical impairments, including ...

Global drought hotspots report catalogs severe suffering, economic damage in 2023-2025

2025-07-02
Fuelled by climate change and relentless pressure on land and water resources, some of the most widespread and damaging drought events in recorded history have taken place since 2023, according to a UN-backed report launched today. Prepared by the U.S. National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), with support from the International Drought Resilience Alliance (IDRA), the report, "Drought Hotspots Around the World 2023-2025," provides a comprehensive account of how droughts compound poverty, ...

Study: To battle tip fatigue, businesses should make their service efforts visible

2025-07-02
PULLMAN, Wash. -- As customers face more and more prompts to add a tip to the bill in places where gratuities were not customary only a few years ago—and often before any service has been rendered—their attitudes toward the practice have turned sharply negative. “Businesses should seriously consider whether they want to offer that tipping request,” said Ruiying Cai, an assistant professor in the WSU’s Carson College of Business and co-author of a new study published in the International Journal of Hospitality ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Enhancing the “feel-good” factor of urban vegetation using AI and street view images

A single genetic mutation may have made humans more vulnerable to cancer than chimpanzees

Innovative nanocomposite hydrogel shows promise for cartilage regeneration in osteoarthritis treatment

2025 Guangci Laboratory Medicine Innovation and Development Conference

LabMed Discovery is included in the ICI World Journals database

LabMed Discovery is included in the China Open Access Journal (COAJ) database

Vaccination support program reduces pneumonia-related mortality by 25 percent among the elderly

Over decades, a healthy lifestyle outperforms metformin in preventing onset of Type 2 diabetes

Mental health disorders, malaria, and heart disease most affected by covid pandemic

Green transition will boost UK productivity

Billions voted in 2024, but major new report exposes cracks in global democracy

Researchers find “forever chemicals” impact the developing male brain

Quantum leap in precision sensing across technologies

Upgrading biocrude oil into sustainable aviation fuel using zeolite-supported iron-molybdenum carbide nanocatalysts

For effective science communication, ‘just the facts’ isn’t good enough

RT-EZ: A golden gate assembly toolkit for streamlined genetic engineering of rhodotorula toruloides

Stem Cell Reports announces five new early career editors

Support networks may be the missing link for college students who seek help for excessive drinking

The New England Journal of Medicine shines spotlight on forensic pathology

Scientists discover protein that helps lung cancer spread to the brain

Perceived social status tied to cardiovascular risks in women but not in men

Brain tumor growth patterns may help inform patient care management

This might be America's first campus tree inventory

Emoji use may impact relationship outcomes

Individual merit, not solidarity, prioritized by early childhood education policies

Preclinical study unlocks a mystery of rapid mouth healing

Extraterrestrial habitats: bioplastics for life beyond earth

U.S. military spending reductions could substantially lower energy consumption

Air pollution is linked to adverse birth outcomes in India

Using viral load tests to help predict mpox severity when skin lesions first appear

[Press-News.org] Researchers identify new protein target to control chronic inflammation
Mass General Brigham findings suggest new avenues for studying and treating inflammation in the future