[의학신문·일간보사=김현기 기자] In the process of treating diabetes, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, a new factor is attracting attention that regulates a system called “autophagy”, essential for maintaining cellular homeostasis in our body.
The team of Professor Dong-Ha Kim of the Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine, Catholic University of Korea, announced that it has recently verified the function of ‘C / EBP’, a new regulator of autophagy, for the first time in the world. using single-cell genome analysis.
According to Professor Kim’s team, autophagy is an intracellular decomposition and recycling system that removes unnecessary proteins or damaged organelles to maintain cellular homeostasis and inevitably decomposes.
Therefore, in order to maintain a certain level of autophagy, the gene must be activated to produce the autophagic protein and the amount of the protein must be sufficiently maintained in the cell. However, problems with this system are known to cause serious diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Consequently, considering that the process of regulating autophagy and the new discovery of its regulators has been a very important task in overcoming related diseases, it is likely that the result of this research by Professor Kim’s team leads to problems with the function of autophagy. possibility of developing drug candidates for various diseases.
Specifically, in this study, Professor Kim’s team found that C / EBP is an autophagy regulator that functions specifically according to a previously unknown type of nutrient deficiency that activates genes.
In particular, autophagy modulators using the C / EBP mechanism, which act specifically in the amino acid deficiency identified in this study, are used in the development of therapeutic agents for various metabolic diseases, degenerative brain diseases, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. function problems caused by autophagy It is expected that it will be usefully used by targeting the regulation of amino acids.
Professor Kim said: ‘I am surprised and delighted to have successfully completed the first study to predict and test new autophagy regulators using single-cell genome analysis. We want to lay the foundation for the development of therapeutic agents for intractable diseases by testing factors faster and more accurately. ”
Meanwhile, the study was published in the world-renowned scientific journal “Nucleic Acids Research (IF 19.16)” as a thesis entitled “Study on the function of the autophagy regulator specific for amino acid deficiency C / EBP using transcriptome analysis unicellular “.
–
