A new study recently described a new approach for "pyroptosis" analysis that's long believed to be lasting and once commenced, can certainly be paused and controlled.
A ScitTechDaily report said the research published by the University of Illinois Chicago researchers showed the new approach for analyzing pyroptosis, the cell death process that typically results from infections and leads to excess inflammation in the body.
Such a research finding means that researchers have a new approach in studying illnesses that are associated with malfunctioning cell death processes such as certain cancers and infections that can be complexed by out-of-control inflammation that the process causes.
Such inflammations comprise sepsis, for instance, as well as acute respiratory distress syndrome, which is one of the major complications of the COVID-19 infection.
Pyroptosis
Pyroptosis is a series of biological reactions that employ a protein called "gasmerin" to open big pores in the cell membrane, not to mention destabilize the cell.
For further insight into this process, the UIC researchers developed an "optogenetic" gasdermin by inherently engineering protein in order for it to respond to light.
According to UIC assistant professor Gary Mo, from the department of pharmacology and regenerative medicine, and the department of biomedical engineering at the College of Medicine, the cell death process plays a vital role in the body, in both healthy states, as well as the unhealthy ones.
However, he added that examining pyroptosis, which is a major cell death type, has been quite a challenge. Mo also said that approaches to study the pyroptosis mechanisms at play in live cells are challenging to control since they are instigated by erratic pathogens, which in turn, have dissimilar impacts in different cells and people.
Mimicking Occurrence in the Cell at the Molecular Level
Mo explained that their optogenetic gasdermin enabled them to skip over the erratic behavior of the pathogen, as well as the variable cellular response as it copies at the molecular level, what takes place in the cell the moment pyroptosis has been initiated.
In their study published in Nature Communications, the researchers applied this mechanism and used florescent imaging technology to accurately activate gasdermin in cell studies and observe the pores under different circumstances.
They found that certain circumstances such as specific calcium ion concentrations, for instance, stimulated the pores to close within just tens of seconds.
A Form of Cell Death That's Not a '1-Way Ticket'
Such an atomic response to the outer or external circumstances provides evidence that pyroptosis, which is described in the Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy journal, is dynamically self-regulating.
Mo said this then showed that this cell death form is not a one-way ticket. Such a process is actually programmed with a cancel button an off-switch.
Understanding how to regulate the process unlocks new avenues for the discovery of the drug, and now such drugs that work for both sides can be found, explained the assistant professor.
It has enabled the researchers to think about tuning, either enhancing or restricting, this particular cell death type in illnesses, where they could previously only eliminate such an essential process.
Related information about pyroptosis is shown on Brain Boost's YouTube video below:
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