Molecular ‘Clutch’ Puts Infection-Fighting Cells into Gear | HHMI-MBL Summer Institute

This is the latest discovery to emerge from the HHMI-MBL Summer Institute, a large, interdisciplinary collaboration held at the MBL between 2013-2017.

Two proteins that act as a ‘clutch’ in cells to put them in gear and drive our immune response have been identified for the first time.

A team of biochemists and cell biologists ...  working together at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole in the United States thanks to funding by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute — have uncovered a process within cells that shows how they move contents around inside them. It appears that they move in a manner similar to switching gears in a car.

The research, published in the journal eLife, could give insights into the mechanisms that activate immune cells and could eventually drive the development of new treatments.

The research focused on the composition of protein condensates – clusters of different types of proteins bound together that are found inside cells. These condensates have been found to play significant roles in many biological processes, and have also been implicated in diseases, including Huntington's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and several types of cancer. Read more of the article here.

Source: Molecular ‘Clutch’ Puts Infection-Fighting Cells into Gear | HHMI Summer Institute