So ask your researchers to go back over the 1000 failed hyperacute therapies and see if this new knowledge could require new clinical trials.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/uocf-do030413.php
Oxidative stress turns a protein that normally protects healthy cells
into their executioner, according to a study released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
Alvaro Estevez, an associate professor at the University of Central
Florida's College of Medicine, led the multi-university team that made
the discovery, which could eventually help scientists develop new
therapies to combat a host of conditions from stroke to Lou Gehrig's
disease
Researchers have long known that oxidative stress damages cells and
results in neurodegeneration, inflammation and aging. It was commonly
believed that oxidation made a "crude," demolition-like attack on cells,
causing them to crumble like a building in an earthquake, Estevez said.
However, the latest findings show that oxidation results in a much more
targeted attack to specific parts of the cell. Oxidative stress damages
a specific "chaperone" cell protein called Hsp90. It plays a role in up
to 200 different cell functions. But when a form of oxidative stress
called tyrosine nitration modifies that protein, it turns into the cell
"executioner" shutting it down.
"The concept that a protein that is normally protective and
indispensable for cell survival and growth can turn into a killing
machine, and just because of one specific oxidative modification, is
amazing," said Maria C. Franco, a postdoctoral associate at UCF's
Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences. She co-wrote the study.
"Considering that this modified protein is present in a vast number of
pathologies, it gives us hopes on finding new therapeutics approaches
for several different diseases."
For example, researchers could devise a drug that stroke patients
could take at the onset of their symptoms to prevent more healthy cells
from dying, thus limiting the damage of the stroke. Because oxidation is
linked to inflammation, researchers believe tyrosine nitration could
also be related to other health problems including heart disease,
cancer, aging and chronic pain.
"These are very exciting results and could begin a major shift in
medicine," said Joseph Beckman, from Oregon State University
Environmental Health Sciences Center, a collaborator on the study.
"Preventing this process of tyrosine nitration may protect against a
wide range of degenerative diseases."
"Most people think of things like heart disease, cancer, aging,
liver disease, even the damage from spinal injury as completely
different medical issues," Beckman said. "To the extent they can often
be traced back to inflammatory processes that are caused by oxidative
attack and cellular damage, they can be more similar than different. It
could be possible to develop therapies with value against many seemingly
different health problems."
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