Discovery of protein regulatory principles opens new directions for research
27 November 2008
A discovery at the MRC's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge sheds new light on the co-ordinated regulatory mechanisms that control the availability of proteins within cells (protein homeostasis). It will pave the way for new directions of research in subject areas as diverse as cancer, neurodegeneration, synthetic biology and protein engineering.
The research was commended by reviewers as a "landmark contribution” in the field of intrinsically unstructured proteins (IUPs). IUPs are involved in signalling and in coordinating regulatory events in cells. 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. 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, Cambridge, explained:
"We set out to discover the strategies that organisms have evolved to maintain the right levels of IUPs in cells, and 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 of time in the cell. This control minimizes the harmful effects of IUPs and at the same time permits their vital contribution to the functioning of the cell. The new and comprehensive system-wide view of regulation of IUPs will help the identification of intervention strategies to manipulate protein homeostasis and enable us to study many diseases in new ways."
Telephone: 020 7637 6011
Email: press.office@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk
Notes
A report of the research, entitled “Tight Regulation of Unstructured Proteins: from Transcript Synthesis to Protein Degradation” appears in this week’s issue of Science.
