Purdue University scientists have discovered how to monitor and deal with specific types of cancers through immunoproteasome.
Medical doctors and patients who know the cause of certain cancers and autoimmune diseases find it frustrating since they are only limited to the cause and do not know how to deal with its effects in the body.
Information regarding this can be obtained with the immunoproteasome. This protein complex is present in autoimmune diseases where the immune cells of the body attack and destroy themselves. This is also present in colorectal, colon, and breast cancers.
"It is well understood which types of cells will express the immunoproteasome," said Darci Trader, an assistant professor of medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology in Purdue's College of Pharmacy, who leads the research team. "How its activity can be perturbed to affect disease is not."
A new probe that monitors and labels immunoproteasome-expressing cells have been developed by Trader and her colleagues. Their findings have been published on March 20 of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Current probes are limited with their efficiency in monitoring immunoproteasome's activity in live cells because they are not cell permeable and "can easily be degraded by other cellular proteases."
"Having an immunoproteasome-selective probe that can work in live cells allows for a quicker readout of how small molecules are affecting the activity of the immunoproteasome," Trader said. "We are going to use our new immunoproteasome probe to discover small molecules to help tweak the immune system response for people dealing with cancers, infections and autoimmune diseases."
The probe is aimed to provide a faster immune system response in cancer cases, while the objective is to lessen the response of the immune system in the case of autoimmune diseases. Immunoproteasome is shown to be present at the probe fluoresces.
The team also works on determining the capacity of the probe in detecting the immunoproteasome and then use it to release drugs in treating diseases.
