This is what the prestigious journal NATURE reveals in its latest issue; The breakdown stops cell division, until another mechanism is activated to repair the damage
The Technion researchers, working together with researchers from Italy and the USA, succeeded in discovering the enzyme in the ubiquitin system, which causes the breakdown of a protein called CDC25A, when the body detects damage caused to DNA. This is what the prestigious scientific journal NATURE reveals in its latest issue.
The Israeli group is headed by Professor Avraham Hershko, from the Baruch Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion. "The ubiquitin system in the body marks proteins destined for degradation in the body", he explained. "This marking allows the body to eliminate unnecessary proteins and leave intact the proteins intended to continue functioning. When the body detects DNA damage, it stops cell division until another mechanism corrects the detected defect. It does this by breaking down a protein called CDC25A.
Now we have found, together with our colleagues in Milan and New York, the specific enzyme in the ubiquitin system, which causes the breakdown of this protein, when DNA damage is detected."
The discovery of ubiquitin, by Professor Hershko and his student at the time, Professor Aharon Chachanover, brought about a real revolution in the understanding of the regulatory mechanisms of intracellular processes and has since served as a basis for thousands of publications and books and the establishment of biotechnology companies, the search for cures for diseases, which are caused as a result of washing in the breakdown of proteins, Diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and many types of cancer.
The latest discovery is also important in the field of cancer research and in the distant future, through genetic engineering, it may be possible to strengthen the enzyme that was just discovered and thus stop the cancer cell.
The three groups of researchers have been working on the discovery of the enzyme for two years, with the group at the Technion dealing with the biochemical part, and the other two groups - with the cell biology.
