Researchers have made an important discovery about the causes of schizophrenia, a disease related to dementia or fragmented mentality. Researchers have identified two genes associated with the disease as well as a third gene that carries the risk of schizophrenia and autism. Scientists involved in this research believes, this discovery can go a long way in finding a cure for these kind of diseases. Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine found that these harmful genes are almost the same in every ethnic or racial group. The findings of this research were published in Nature Genetics . According to an estimate, about one percent of people worldwide suffering from schizophrenia. The scientists identified two risky genes, SRRM2 and AKAP11, based on a comparative analysis of gene sequencing from individuals with schizophrenia and healthy individuals. It compared a dataset of 35,828 patients with schizophrenia to 107,877 healthy or control groups and included a variety of
The word autophagy is derived from the Greek words 'Auto' meaning self and 'Phagy' meaning eating. Autophagy is a self-digesting mechanism responsible for removal of damaged organelles in our body.
It is a normal psychological process that is responsible for the automatic digestion of cells in human body. Autophagy is the same as feeding of damaged cells.
Autophagy is a lysosome dependent mechanism to remove unnecessary proteins in our body. It suggests the orderly degradation and recycling of cellular components.
Autophagy maintains normal functions through protein degradation during biosynthesis, and nonfunctional long-lived proteins by lysosome. It automatically creates new cells to replace destroyed cells.
This concept emerged during the 1960's, when researchers first observed that the cell could destroy its own contents to the membrane. In the 1990s, Oshinori Ohsumi used Baker's yeast to identify genes required for autophagy destructions.
He correctly demonstrated the process of autophagy in yeast and told that our cells also follow this mechanism. His research helped us to understand how cells recycle their organs through autophagy. He was also awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine for this research.
The rate of autophagy in cells increases during stress. Eventually this process is completed. Nutrients insufficiency and other catalyst leads to increased cellular stress. So this process keeps them alive through recycling of cells.
Key Processes of Autophagy
Autophagy kills cells under certain conditions. This is also known as schematic cell death. Schematic cell death is also called apoptosis. It basically harmonizes the product of cellular components and the broken or destroyed unnecessary cellular components.
There are a few major modes of degradation in which the proteasome is involved. It breaks down short proteins into smaller parts.
Autophagy is the accumulation of cell organelles that have been destroyed as a result of the internal stress of cells. In addition, autophagy enables cells to withstand infectious diseases or biological invasions.
The process of autophagy can be observed in all eukaryotic cells. This includes fungi, plants, moldy fungi, nematodes, fruit flies and insects, munching animals, and humans.
Key Stages of Autophagy
Microautophagy: Under this process the components of the cytoplasm are taken up through the lysosome membrane.
Macroautophagy: It consists of microautophagy-40. The lysosome membrane is involved in chaperone-mediated autophagy. In this, there is a direct wear of the cell through folding.
Information about its detection and treatment is obtained through autophagy in health and disease. The molecular characteristics of autophagy provide insight into how this process proceeds, and they play an important role in driving the entire process of autophagy.
The signals delivered by autophagy play an important role in cytology for the accurate diagnosis of diseases.
Initially, autophagy was thought to be a response to the cell. But through continuous research, it has been proved that this whole system operates on the base pillar.
Ubiquitin is the proteasome system that breaks down short-lived proteins. In contrast, autophagy breaks down long-term proteins.
This is the same process that is capable of breaking down all the cell organelles – such as mitochondria, peroxisomes and eventually proliferative reticulum. Thus autophagy plays an important role in the maintenance of cellular establishment.
Furthermore autophagy participates in various physiological processes. For example, cell differentiation, embryogenesis, where a greater part of the cytoplasm needs to be disposed of.
Autophagy rapidly enters cells in a variety of stress processes indicating the importance of protection against harmful bacteria. Apart from this, it is also capable of dealing with many diseases related to cellular damage and aging.
If for some reason the process of autophagy is not completed, then our body can suffer from many types of diseases. It is an important modality for therapeutic intervention.
The role of autophagy in relation to diseases and the deep knowledge about it was first obtained from the deep inspection of Wakelin-1, which is a product of the B.E.C.N-1 gene. It is highly mutated during human breast cancer and uterine cancer.
The B.E.C.N-1 gene is homologous to the yeast A.T.G, which regulates each step at the very beginning of autophagy. The disturbances in the process of autophagy are responsible for almost all types of cancer occurring in our body.
Autophagy Benefits and Uses
1. In the treatment of cancer.
2. In the treatment of age related diseases.
3. In the treatment of cell related diseases.
4. In the treatment of neurological diseases.
5. Autophagy also plays an important role in the treatment of many diseases including leprosy, Parkinson's.
So that, autophagy is good for our health. It is natural and body controlled system to remove ill cells.
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