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Key Step In Programmed Cell Death Discovered
Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered a dance of proteins that protects certain cells from undergoing apoptosis, also known as programmed cell death. Understanding the fine points of apoptosis is important to researchers seeking ways to control this process. In a series of experiments, St. Jude researchers found that if any one of three molecules is missing, certain cells lose the ability to protect themselves from apoptosis. A report on this work appears in the advance online publication of Nature.
Death Hax! Death Hax!
I for one welcome our dancing protein overlords.
Contrary to first glance, this story has nothing to do with programming or the cell processor. /me moves on.
so like when the new dancing proteins come out I will have the best internet handle.
You might even call this an *anti*-break dance? Eh? Eh?
Fuck yourselves
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The human body is a data set. This data set is transferred repeatedly throughout life and it is the data representing the body that is persistent. Data can last eternally if there is a continuity of available storage mechanisms during that duration. In a stateful universe there may not even need to be physical storage if the entire universe replicates from the previous state into a new state. Experience is the observation of a change in state. In theory any state of the universe (data set) could be observed with time being irrelevant because you are simply looking at a huge data set that exists outside of time. Data is beyond the effects of time. It is because we are simply experiencing a complete data representing the universe in consecutive states at a particular point in a cause and effect chain. But that is another topical area.
The physical material of the body is not persistent; the data is persistent. A life term is only limited by the ability to replicate the data provided the life force or animation principal persists. It is the destruction of data set that results in a terminal condition that or the inability to properly replicate the data set. After enough failures the logic needed by the system and it's integrated sub systems is degraded to such a degree that the sub-systems fail causing the entire system to fail. In other words the system develops bugs and the hardware starts to fail, we call these things disease conditions.
Each time the data is copied there can be corruption or failure of the data transfer mechanisms; this seems to most affect mitochondrial DNA. The biochemical machine will repair a bad data copy using a good copy when the genetic hash value is wrong. The number of times that the data can be replicated in technically in theory is to infinity.
However there is a design constraint on the human biochemical machine which is probably mathematical in nature and an inherent system limitation resulting from the engineering requirements needed for the system to work. The chromosomes have a limited number of telomeres available limiting the number of replications. Telomeres are like book ends which keep books together. The telomeres keep the chromosomes together. Every time it is replicated, child cell produced, a new data copy is made, and a new set of book ends is used the first cell starts with a limited number so the number of cell generations is limited. When the book ends runs out that cell line ceases to exist.
There are biochemical mechanisms to add on telomeres, however the genetic switch or functional capability to allow these mechanisms to be applied to all cell lines near the end of their duration, allowing them to continue for an infinite duration (Eternity), does not seem to be set to ON in the human species and may be related to the ability to produce vitamin C being turned off. In fact this one genetic switch that was turned off thousands of years ago could be part of the immortality factors. However what we find in the phenomena of cancer seems to be a failed immune or immortality response.
Also worth noting is that intelligent stem cells can assume data, properties and functions of other cells groups in effect allowing data persistence and renewal of cell lines.
If the gene to create the enzyme to manufacture vitamin C is turned off there is a way to emulate it being turned on by consuming the amounts of Vitamin C that would have been generated to support or enhance the biochemical systems.
If we could mange adding telomeres back in the right places, and or slow down replication cycles caused by the need for repairs, maintain neural integrity (improved cellular waste removal), prevent mitochondrial DNA damage, and or utilize the advanced intelligence of stem cells for replacement and persistence, we would have at least life spans approaching 1,000 year
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
I wonder if they could trigger apoptosis in cancer cells? That would be very cool
the system clean to have to decide MOST. LOOK AT THE on baby...don't
Do nothing but snarky Bill Hicks-style smackdowns on the crappy pop acts ruining our culture and minds. This is "Falling Towards Apoptosis" with your host, Jollyreaper. Join me with the Christian Coalition -- they'll be smashing the CD's because they're immoral, I'll be smashing them because they suck.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
It's all coming together now, this is the precursor to the real life Resident Evil series.
And on that note... I call chainsaw-hand!
So can I be exposed to these three molecules in such a way that my immune system makes antibodies for them? Would be nice to be immunized against death.
Shh.
probably for only the rich & powerful, us unwashed masses wont get it, and if we do it will be available after i die of old age or some terrible disease...
with over 6 billion people on earth just think if everyone got immortality and everyone making babies soon earth will be standing room only - yowsa!!!
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
When a cell's number is up, an enzyme stops by, checks to see that it only has 512 megs of RAM, and then installs Windows Vista on it. Biology is fascinating.
-1 Offtopic
-1 Troll
Table-ized A.I.
The proteins identified in the paper protect against apoptosis. If you were to inhibit them, your cells would be more susceptible to apoptosis, not more resistant (which they show using a knockout mouse). More importantly though, apoptosis is an essential process in both development and regulation (particularly the immune response). Indiscriminately inhibiting the apoptotic process would be detrimental to the organism as a whole (resulting in death, not the protection from).
Let's say your body produced neutralizing antibodies to the three proteins (or better yet, you inject humanized antibodies that targeted the proteins), the antibodies would still have to penetrate the cell in order to see their target. You would be much better off making a tat-fusion protein of a dominant-negative form of the protein.
Lastly, we've already identified several molecules that are important for apoptosis. One catagory of such proteins is call the Caspases.
The actual abstract and article can be found on Nature's website and is entitled Hax1-mediated processing of HtrA2 by Parl allows survival of lymphocytes and neurons. Essentially what the researchers showed was that the gene Hax1 keeps cells alive when they aren't being stimulated with survival signals. This is interesting, for example, because cancer metastasis cells must survive in very foreign environments where they probably aren't receiving these factors. On the flip side, deficiencies in Hax1 results in blood cells dying early, causing a disease called severe congenital neutropenia.
"A research team elsewhere recently reported that Kostmann's syndrome, a potentially fatal inherited deficiency of granulocytes in children, caused by excessive apoptosis of granulocytes, results from a deficiency in one of the three proteins, called Hax1."
So, basically, this disease occurs because one doesn't have "teh Hax(1)".
On a slightly related note, does it drive anyone else crazy when someone says "theory" when they mean (at best) hypothesis (a falsifiable idea based on the data) or (at worst) conjecture (when they mean "some hair-brained idea without significant support but *maybe* fits my notion of life, the universe, and everything)?
What GPP was saying is NOT a theory. Relativity is a theory. Evolution (well, through mutation and natural selection) is a theory. E=IR is a theory. A theory is well supported by facts, either not yet disproved by facts (evolution, relativity), or, though disproved, accurate enough to work well enough in our frame of reference (Newton's laws of gravity).
I understand the colloquial meaning of "theory" perfectly well, and I reject it, especially in a place like Slashdot. This is "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." The language should reflect that. (NB: this rant is targeted at GPP, while voicing my agreement with the parent post)
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
There are four general situations where apoptosis is medically interesting. This particular result increases our understanding of apoptsis generally, so is potentially relevant to all of them:
a) Cancer. This is the big one. Your body has a natural defense against cancer - cells that would become cancerous undergo apoptosis and die. Only when this defense fails do you actually get cancer.
b) Viral Infections. Viruses (and a few bacteria, but it's not the same thing) get inside the individual cells of your body and take them over to make viruses. Again, your body defends itself by inducing apoptosis in affected cells - the virus will typically contain genes to try and prevent this.
c) Some degenerative diseases result from apoptosis being triggerred improperly in certain cells (Parkinsons' disease probably works this way.)
d) Aptoptosis plays a major role in normal human development; if this goes wrong, this may cause certain development defects.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
...cells die because they get bored.
Should I start shopping for a german shephard puppy?
That was the biggest load of jibber jabber since time cube.
Perhaps, once you've become immortal, you'll live long enough to understand the time cube. Foolish mortals!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
That's why I always thought the most successful treatments would be the ones that somehow exerted selective pressure to favor the weaker cells - those most vulnerable to a particular treatment, for example.
Failing that, an "ensemble method" is probably the way to go, since cells that survive that would have to be immune to the intersection of every treatment you're throwing at them.
Another idea that avoids the selectivity problem is to use things that cause cancerous cells to differentiate, rather than killing them off - that's what makes ATRA such a great therapy for acute promyelocytic leukemia, for example. Those sorts of things should probably become easier to find with advances in genetics and more targeted therapies. Other things that don't kill cancer cells but render them harmless, like angiogenesis inhibitors or telomerase antagonists, also offer promise, since either the cells are immune but can't complete the steps required for proliferation or they're not immune and are affected by the treatment (the problem is that cells sometimes have more than one way to do these things...).
(Disclaimer: IANAO)
Dr. Chojkier and lead author Martina Buck, Ph.D., of VA, UCSD and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, have described the steps by which tumor necrosis factor (TNF) alpha, an immune-system protein, prevents the production of albumin. Low levels of albumin, a critical protein made in the liver, is a keynote of wasting.
According to Dr. Chojkier, a gastroenterologist and liver specialist, antioxidants such as vitamin E might halt wasting in humans if these supplements were delivered in very high amounts-or even better, if they were targeted to the liver.Read it all here http://iamblogging.net/archives/2008/02/cancer_the_deat.html
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bcl-2-associated_X_protein
Hax1, Pac1 and that other protein just help sequester this guy.
Is that why life still exists on this planet after several years of GW? whooaaa.
Have I got a deal for you...
One step closer to a zombie invasion. Fire up the flame thrower, honey, it's gonna be a long night!
Anything can, could, and will happen.
This gene also gives you the ability to see through walls and have perfect aim.
it looks like we're well on the way to discovering the Stileman Process.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
All the inmates serving "Life-Sentences"....I know and understand this isnt an "immortality" prospect, in all reality, but just say it was, what WOULD we do wiht them at that point...Deny them an immortality prospect or not...I mean when the judgememnt of "life sentence" was issued the judge or jury prolly wasn't taking this into account... In light of that news, I'd have to say that the penal system would have to be reworked due to the fact that we wouldn't want to pay to keep inmates indeffinately in jail...This would maybe either A) boost capital punishment or B)eliminate life terms...And i know this is far fetched and sci-fi esque....pretend that the treatment was a genetic one that was bred into the population through gene manipulation during gestation, and then became a passable trait for future offspring so it was inherently IN the population, there would be no way of reversing it....so what would we do for deathes and such as well? adn what would we do for life inmates?