The findings of this research may result in novel opportunities for crafting treatments of metabolic diseases linked to inflammation like diabetes and arteriosclerosis. Scientists from the Swedish medical University, Karolinska Instituet claim to have found a protein that may be vital in arbitrating the anti inflammatory proceedings of nuclear lipid receptors. The discoveries may be connected to lipid metabolism.
Nuclear receptors are believed to be regulatory proteins in the cell nucleus that may straightaway attach to a range of hormones, metabolites and pharmaceuticals. Fastening appears to influence the activity of these proteins, thereby causing them to switch genes on or off that in turn may result in augmented or reduced generation of the proteins that may perform varied roles in the cell.
Various nuclear receptors are claimed to be identified as master regulators of lipid metabolism and homeostasis. Most recent research seems to signify that these receptors may also play vital functions in the control of inflammation by means of mechanisms that remain to be verified.
A team headed by Professor Eckardt Treuter has apparently now examined the molecular instruments of how the nuclear lipid receptors LRH-1 and LXR may hinder inflammatory gene expression in liver throughout the supposed severe phase reaction. The research recognized GPS2, a protein that may promptly communicate with receptors, as a fundamental constituent of a refined protein network or ‘genomic positioning system’ finding out where and when these lipid receptors may function anti-inflammatory.
The recognized pathway seems to strap metabolism and inflammation and is consequently pertinent for the comprehension of metabolic diseases like diabetes and atherosclerosis. The scientists seem to suspect even wider roles of connected pathways in diverse tissues associated with metabolic diseases and to cancers.
Eckardt Treuter commented, “We are now closer to understanding, at the molecular level, how dys-regulation of individual components of these pathways causes alterations in gene expression that contribute to the development of metabolic diseases linked to inflammation. This knowledge may open up novel pharmacological interventions.”
He added that for instance, drugs that stabilize receptor interactions with GPS2 could possibly trigger the anti-inflammatory pathway.
The research was published in the journal Genes & Development.