Prof. Marcin Drąg with his team designed chemical tools that can prevent tumor formation.
Prof. Drąg, Marcin Poręba, MSc, and Paulina Kasperkiewicz, MSc, with the use of a technology developed by themselves, designed and produced new, specific chemical compounds useful for the examination of proteinases (caspases). They control the process known as programmed cell death thanks to which old or damaged cells are removed from our body so that new ones can be formed in their place. Deregulation of this process often leads to many diseases of affluence, especially tumors and neurodegeneration diseases.
The discovery of scientists from Wrocław University of Technology can help designing tests that will allow a quicker monitoring of the course of programmed cell death. “Fortunately, there is a whole group of proteins responsible for an efficient execution of this process. Among them, caspases play a central role. Thanks to our tools, it will be possible to watch the activity of each enzyme separately and detect any abnormalities in the body at an early stage. So far, this hasn’t been possible.” – explains Prof. Marcin Drąg, manager of the project.
The largest chemical and pharmaceutical companies have been seeking chemical compounds specific for this group of proteins for over 20 years. Our scientists were first in the world to discover them, after 4 years of research. It turned out that the key to solving the problem was in non-standard amino acids. With the use of them, we were able to find chemical particles specific for each of the examined enzymes and thus to distinguish them.” – explains Marcin Poręba, MSc, the main researcher in the project. The specificity of the compounds obtained has been confirmed by biological examination carried out in the laboratory of Prof. Guy Salvesen from Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute in the USA.
The project was financed by the National Science Centre and the research results were published in the prestigious “Cell Death & Differentiation” magazine, which belongs to the “Nature” platform.
Joanna Pająk
Translation: Dariusz Więcławski |