RxPG News Feed for RxPG News

Medical Research Health Special Topics World
  Home
 
   Health
 Aging
 Asian Health
 Events
 Fitness
 Food & Nutrition
 Happiness
 Men's Health
 Mental Health
 Occupational Health
 Parenting
 Public Health
 Sleep Hygiene
 Women's Health
 
   Healthcare
 Africa
 Australia
 Canada Healthcare
 China Healthcare
 India Healthcare
 New Zealand
 South Africa
 UK
 USA
 World Healthcare
 
   Latest Research
 Aging
 Alternative Medicine
 Anaethesia
 Biochemistry
 Biotechnology
  Drug Delivery
  Nanotechnology
 Cancer
 Cardiology
 Clinical Trials
 Cytology
 Dental
 Dermatology
 Embryology
 Endocrinology
 ENT
 Environment
 Epidemiology
 Gastroenterology
 Genetics
 Gynaecology
 Haematology
 Immunology
 Infectious Diseases
 Medicine
 Metabolism
 Microbiology
 Musculoskeletal
 Nephrology
 Neurosciences
 Obstetrics
 Ophthalmology
 Orthopedics
 Paediatrics
 Pathology
 Pharmacology
 Physiology
 Physiotherapy
 Psychiatry
 Radiology
 Rheumatology
 Sports Medicine
 Surgery
 Toxicology
 Urology
 
   Medical News
 Awards & Prizes
 Epidemics
 Launch
 Opinion
 Professionals
 
   Special Topics
 Ethics
 Euthanasia
 Evolution
 Feature
 Odd Medical News
 Climate

Last Updated: Oct 11, 2012 - 10:22:56 PM
Biotechnology Channel

subscribe to Biotechnology newsletter
Latest Research : Biotechnology

   EMAIL   |   PRINT
First comprehensive map of the proteins and kinase signaling network

Dec 1, 2005 - 5:37:00 AM
"It was a little like having all the pieces of an airplane separated out, and not knowing how those pieces function together to create an airplane and make it fly. We wanted to know how the tens of thousands of proteins coordinate to carry out complex processes such as growth, cell division and formation of complex cell types such as brain cells and intestinal cells."

 
[RxPG] A team of scientists at Yale University has completed the first comprehensive map of the proteins and kinase signaling network that controls how cells of higher organisms operate, according to a report this week in the journal Nature.

The study is a breakthrough in understanding mechanisms of how proteins operate in different cell types under the control of master regulator molecules called protein kinases. Although protein kinases are already important targets of cancer drugs including Gleevec and Herceptin, until recently, it has been difficult to identify the proteins regulated by the kinases.

Led by Michael Snyder, Lewis B Cullman Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, these researchers focused on the expression and relationship between proteins of the yeast cell "proteome," or the proteins that are active in a cell.

Protein kinases act as regulator switches and modify their target proteins by adding a phosphate group to them. This process, called "phosphorylation," results in altered activity of the phosphorylated protein. It is estimated that 30% of all proteins are regulated by this process.

Using technology developed in Snyder's laboratory, graduate students Jason Ptacek and Geeta Devgan used proteome microarrays to assay the thousands of different proteins in a yeast cell for targets of the protein kinases. The 82 unique kinases, representing the majority of master regulators in the yeast cell, were tested separately with the microarrays to determine which proteins were modified by each kinase.

From the wealth of information generated by these experiments Snyder's team constructed a complex map of the regulatory networks governing the functions and activities of the kinases in the yeast cell. The map shows several distinct patterns.

"It was a little like having all the pieces of an airplane separated out, and not knowing how those pieces function together to create an airplane and make it fly," said Snyder. "We wanted to know how the tens of thousands of proteins coordinate to carry out complex processes such as growth, cell division and formation of complex cell types such as brain cells and intestinal cells."

Over the past several years, a large volume of information on genes in organisms as diverse as man, mouse, baker's yeast and viruses has been generated. While genomic DNA is the blueprint, the encoded proteins are the products that carry out the complex biological functions of cells. Although scientists can predict from the DNA what proteins are in the proteome of an organism, this study opens the door to seeing how they are coordinated to work together.

"This insight into the regulation and integration of biological networks has broad applications for basic science and clinical research," said Snyder. "Biological networks determine the development and function of organisms from the single-celled yeast to man; aberrations in those networks signal disease."

Biological networks are typically conserved between species, meaning that often the same type of protein carries out the same type of function, whether it is in a yeast cell or a human cell. According to Snyder, these findings in yeast are of immediate use for understanding both human development from the fertilized egg to full grown organism, and for drug discovery targeting human diseases.



Publication: Nature 439: (December 1, 2005)
On the web: www.yale.edu 

Advertise in this space for $10 per month. Contact us today.


Related Biotechnology News


Subscribe to Biotechnology Newsletter

Enter your email address:


 Additional information about the news article
Other authors on the paper are Heng Zhu, Xiaowei Zhu, Joseph Fasolo, Ghil Jona, Soo-Jung Lee, Mark Gerstein and David F. Stern from Yale; Gregory Michaud, Hong Guo, Lihao Meng, Barry Schweitzer and Paul F. Predki from Invitrogen Corporation; Ashton Breitkreutz, Richelle Sopko, Michael Tyers and Brenda Andrews from the University of Toronto; Rhonda R. McCartney and Martin C. Schmidt from the University of Pittsburgh; Najma Rachidi and Michael J.R. Stark from the University of Dundee, UK; Angie S. Mah from the California Institure of Technology and Claudio DeVirgilio from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Wellcome Trust, UK.
 Feedback
For any corrections of factual information, to contact the editors or to send any medical news or health news press releases, use feedback form

Top of Page

 
Contact us

RxPG Online

Nerve

 

    Full Text RSS

© All rights reserved by RxPG Medical Solutions Private Limited (India)