Carolina López bedoya3rd Semester

UPB Teacher: Lina M. Martínez

NEW RESEARCH PINPOINTS CRUCIAL PROTEIN THAT

KEEPS HEART BEATING ON TIME

&

STUDY SHEDS LIGHT ON A 'GUARDIAN' PROTEIN OF

BRAIN FUNCTION

INTRODUCTION

If any of this process fails, our body starts to workincorrectly and all the diseases appear. That’s why scientisthave to know how proteins work in cells, to replace theirfunction with a new method, if something is wrong.

Can we survive without proteins? The answer is NO, ourorganism depends on this macromolecules that make all thecell activities to give our body life.

Researchers have discovered that proteins can catalyzechemical reactions, they guide the flow of electrons duringphotosynthesis, transport information between cells, controlgenetic expression and the movement of molecules acrossthe membrane, and participate in the immune system.

NEW RESEARCH PINPOINTS CRUCIAL PROTEIN THAT KEEPS HEART BEATING ON TIME (FEBRUARY 20, 2015)

How the heart stays so precisely on rhythm even though it contains so many moving parts?

There is a particular protein that plays a central role in this astonishing consistency

Myosin-binding protein C ("C protein") allows the muscle fibers in theheart to work in perfect synchrony.

What did they found?

Calcium acts as a triggerfor the heartbeat,activating proteins thatcause the sarcomeres tocontract.

Calcium molecules are notdistributed across the length ofeach sarcomere; they are releasedfrom the ends. Despite this, thesarcomeres contract uniformly.

Using an animalmodel, they studiedthe physiology ofsarcomeres,measuring calciumrelease and themuscle fibers'mechanical reaction.

C protein sensitizes certainparts of the sarcomere tocalcium. As a result, the middleof the sarcomere contracts justas much as the ends, despitehaving much less calcium. Inother words, C protein enablesthe sarcomeres to contractsynchronously.

C protein It plays a large part in many forms of heart disease: defects in C-

protein lead to extremely serious arrhythmias, which causesudden death when the heart loses the ability to pump blood

C protein mutations can produce contractile and arrhythmicdysfunction in disease.

In my opinion this discovery is a great contribution to modernmedicine, especially in cardiology, because if there is amutation in this protein, or for some reason it stops working,or maybe there is not enough in our organism, with moreinvestigations and research we can create new techniques,like medications, to replace the action that this protein madein the heart. That’s why, I think that we should investigatemore about C protein and discover how it can be synthetizedin a lab to cure patients with heart disease

STUDY SHEDS LIGHT ON A 'GUARDIAN' PROTEIN OF BRAIN FUNCTION (FEBRUARY 23, 2015)

When mitochondria get out of whack, the cell can't function normally. In the brain, mitochondrial failure can set the stage for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and other forms of neurodegeneration.

Monitor mitochondrialfunction and sound thealarm if a mitochondrionhas failed and needs to bereplaced.

CHIP "night watchmen" proteins

What did they found?

Mice with the CHIP genedeleted or "knocked out."

Using a mass spectrometrytechnique they confirmedthat CHIP goes to themitochondria when cellsare stressed by lack ofoxygen

They're smaller than theirnormal littermates, their backlegs are weak, and they dieyoung.

NO CHIP

Nerve cells aremore vulnerable tooxygen and glucosedeprivation and are"loaded" with damagedproteins that impair theirfunctioning.

Nerve cells cannotrecover when, forexample, a strokedisrupts their supply ofoxygen and glucose.

The cellular changes seen in the CHIPknockout mice were the same as those theypreviously detected in postmortem humansamples from people who'd had strokes or"transient ischemic attacks," which interruptthe brain's oxygen and glucose supplies.

Along the human story, the brain has been a complex organ,and finding that there is a protein that keeps it on road, is ahuge discovery, because most of the patients with someneurologic disease have a bad prognosis. That’s why I thinkthat the investigations and researches must be based inunderstanding how does the proteins work in our organism,especially in our brain, describing their entire metabolism,helping the doctors to give a hopeful response to theirpatients.

MEDICAL UTILITY Knowing how it works, C protein is a drug target.

It could help scientists treat heart problems that killmillions of people every year.

Develop CHIP-enhancing drugs to help speedrecovery from strokes andfollowing neurosurgery, andprevent development ofneurodegenerative disorders.

Relieve symptoms of Parkinson'sdisease, to develop imagingtests that can pick up changes inthe mitochondria before thecells die.

This new knowledge canhelp us to understandhow some diseases workexplaining us what iswrong in the cell.

It can encourage doctorsand scientists to createthings more than tocure, to prevent.

Knowing the important role that proteins play in ourorganism, we can search for some other mechanismsto control their activity , contributing to medicaladvances.

BIBLIOGRAPHY New research pinpoints crucial protein that keeps heart beating on time,

University of Maryland School of Medicine, 2015. (Internet) 2015 Feb(Fecha de acceso febrero 24 de 2015) Disponible en:http://www.sciencedaily.com releases/2015/02/150220150414.htm

Study sheds light on a 'guardian' protein of brain function, VanderbiltUniversity Medical Center, 2015. (Internet) 2015 Feb (Fecha de accesofebrero 24 de 2015) Disponible en:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150223104143.htm