Russian scientists have discovered a way to control Polycomb proteins, which are potentially dangerous to the human body. In this respect informs With reference to the press service of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation TASS.
Polycomb (PcG) is a group of suppressor proteins whose task is to suppress harmful or unnecessary operation of many genes. But this system can fail, and then PcGs start to interfere with the activity of beneficial genes. This is particularly common in cancer, and complete suppression of PcG activity may cause additional harm to the patient.
In this regard, scientists from the Institute of Gene Biology (IBG RAS) conducted experiments on fruit flies and found a way to prevent PcG from reaching chromatin. Chromatin forms the basis of the structure of chromosomes and consists of DNA and a set of proteins.
“To convert PcG proteins to chromatin, specific DNA-binding factors that interact with such repressors are required, but scientists have not identified all of them to date. Epigeneticists at IBG RAS have found that the protein product of the Crol gene interacts with PcG proteins and that its mutation is the result of the mutation of these repressors in the fly genome. found that it causes a disruption in its binding to individual chromatin regions,” he said.
In the future, based on this discovery, it will be possible to create a therapy that prevents damage to the body due to improper functioning of PcG.
Formerly paleontologists to solvethat the ancient megalodon shark was warm-blooded.