2023-05-24 11:00:04
It is special that a chemist in a hospital is involved in fundamental research
Body cells function thanks to the proteins they harbor. Such a protein can be switched off or on by small adjustments. Chemist Gerbrand van der Heden van Noort of the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) wants to study two of those modifications that are involved in bacterial infections and cancer, among other things. For this he has received an ERC Consolidator Grant of 2 million euros.
It is special that a chemist in a hospital is involved in fundamental research. And that is precisely what Gerbrand van der Heden van Noort does at the LUMC. In the laboratory of the Department of Cell and Chemical Biology, where he is one of the group leaders, he tinkers with molecules. Not only this setting is quite unique. This also applies to the subject he deals with and his approach. He wants to create chemical tools to monitor the behavior of small changes on proteins. It is not for nothing that the European Research Council (ERC) has awarded him the prestigious Consolidator Grant.
Ubiquitin en ADPr
The chemist explains that all kinds of processes take place in body cells in which proteins play the leading role. ‘These proteins are the machinery of the cell. They do the work. They are switched on or off depending on the desired process. One of the ways that this happens is that enzymes attach or remove small signaling molecules from these proteins. Such modifications change the activity of a protein.’ Van der Heden van Noort focuses specifically on two of those molecules, namely ubiquitin and adenosine diphosphate tribose (ADPr). These occur on several types of proteins, are involved in bacterial infections and cancer, among other things, and can also communicate with each other.
Chemical replication
How that process unfolds is largely a mystery. Van der Heden van Noort sees solving this puzzle as a major challenge. By chemically recreating Ubiquitin and ADPr, he wants to see in the laboratory which processes are initiated in cultured human cells. ‘Because these protein modifications also cause other proteins in a cell to come into action. That joint action could, for example, be resolving DNA damage. But if that recovery doesn’t go right, you can get a tumour. Or take a bacterial infection. Those micro-organisms completely mess up the cell. To fight that infection, the cell has to give a signal so that the immune system comes into action. I want to know how the two signaling molecules affect those processes.
Medicines
Van der Heden van Noort and his team therefore want to know how Ubiquitin and ADPr communicate with each other, why they do so and what the consequences of those interactions are in various diseases. “Obviously, we still have a long way to go before we can apply the research results in the clinic. The idea is that, based on the new knowledge, you can one day develop medicines that, if desired, slow down or speed up these signaling molecules and thus suppress a bacterial infection or cancer .”
Bron: LUMC
Tags for this article:
#Research #protein #modifications #body #cells #received #ERC #grant