Release date: 2013-01-04
An unusual, 10-year journey from the discovery of a rapidly aging mouse allowed scientists to find such a protein. This protein protects animals from the ravages of cancer and aging, and there are no obvious defects in this protein.
The protein, named BubR1, still has a lot of mysteries that scientists need to uncover, but this work provides clues to how to protect chromosomes and improve health.
Jan van Deursen, a cancer biologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and his colleagues initially focused on studying a common feature of cancer, aneuploidy. Aneuploid cells do not have very few chromosomes or many chromosomes. Almost all cancer cells present such classification characteristics, but scientists are not sure why aneuploidy eventually leads to cancer.
Van Deursen and his student Darren Baker figured out how to make the mouse produce some BubR1, a protein that helps isolate chromosomes when cells divide. When BubR1 is reduced, the chromosome cannot be accurately split into the same daughter cells as itself, leaving some daughter cells carrying the wrong number of chromosomes. Van Deursen, Baker and colleagues want to see if the mice have cancer.
To their surprise, the mice did not grow up with tumors, and they age very quickly. Baker, who is studying aging biology at the Mayo Clinic, said: "These mice are very different from normal mice."
Last year, they reported that removing old cells from mice—those that showed genetic signs of aging—can keep them healthy for longer.
In a December 16 issue of Nature-Cell Biology, biologists say that transgenic mice that make additional BubR1 are less likely to develop cancer. For example, they found that when exposed to normal chemical conditions in lung cancer and skin tumors, ordinary mice develop cancer. However, only 33% of mice carrying BubR1 develop cancer in a high-level setting of the chemical environment. They also found that these mice were suffering from fatal cancer much later than normal mice - about two years later. Only 15% of mice carrying BubR1 die from cancer, compared to 40% in normal mice.
Mice carrying BubR1 survived at a high level of established chemical environment for 15% more than the average. At the same time, the mice ran as much as twice as expected, like the Olympic athletes running on the treadmill.
All of these experimental results have led researchers to believe that BubR1 not only prevents cancer, but also extends lifespan. Although they still have insufficient evidence for this argument.
Paul Hasty, who works on aging and DNA repair at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, said: "To achieve the desired results, you need to know exactly how BubR1 works."
Source: Science Times
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