Scientists have discovered a new candidate in their quest to hack the human aging process. It is a little-studied protein within cellular structures, and despite being one of the first organelles identified, it has received little research time. A century ago.
The Golgi apparatus, also known as the Golgi apparatus and the Golgi complex (much to the chagrin of biology students around the world), is a strange-looking cell organelle that resembles a folded sheet of pasta or a layer of icing. However, within complex plant and animal cells, they play an important role in processing and packaging proteins and lipids before they are transported to other parts of the cell or secreted. .
This was a surprising discovery in 1898 for Italian biologist Camilo Golgi, who was studying the nervous system at the time. So it’s no surprise that scientists at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) stumbled upon a particular aspect of the organelle in their study of stressors in plants. – and it holds great promise in maintaining cell lifespan.
“For us, this discovery is a big deal,” said study co-author Katie Deheche, a professor of molecular biochemistry at UCR. “We have revealed for the first time the profound importance of a previously uninvolved cellular organelle in the aging process.”
Initially, thale watercress (Arabidopsis) Plant cells control their responses to stressors such as infection and light deprivation, and researchers have discovered that the Golgi apparatus and key proteins within it play a major role in cell survival when exposed to external stress. It turned out that it worked.
Conserved oligomeric Golgi (COG) proteins help bind sugars (carbohydrates) to other proteins and lipids before the Golgi apparatus moves these packages. This process, glycosylation, is important for cellular function and many biological processes, such as protein folding and adaptive immune response function.
“The Golgi is like the post office of the cell,” says lead author Heeseung Choi, a researcher in UCR’s Department of Plant Sciences. “It packages proteins and lipids and delivers them where they are needed. Damage to the Golgi apparatus can cause disruptions and problems in cell activity, impacting how cells function and maintain health.”
Building on this analogy, researchers say that COG proteins are postal workers, overseeing the movement of small sacs, or envelopes, that move other molecules within cells.
Researchers focused on COG and modified plants so that they could no longer produce the protein naturally. Plants grow normally under optimal conditions, but in the absence of light, their growth rapidly slows and they are unable to convert sunlight into sugars. In fact, plants without COG wilted, yellowed, and died three times faster than unmodified specimens under the same light-deprived conditions.
“In the dark, the COG mutants showed signs of senescence that normally appear in wild, unmodified plants around day 9,” Choi said. “But in the mutant, these signs appeared in just three days.”
However, once we restored the plant’s ability to produce COG, the symptoms resolved and it began to resemble a “normal” specimen. “If we reversed the mutation, it was as if nothing had happened to them,” Dehesh said.
“These responses highlight the critical importance of COG proteins and normal Golgi function in stress management,” Choi added.
What does it have to do with us? Although there are obvious differences between plant cells and animal cells, all of us with complex eukaryotic cells have a “post office” of Golgi apparatus within each cell.
Previous studies have shown that dysfunction of the human COG complex, which is composed of eight COG protein subunits, has profound effects on important biological roles such as glycosylation, protein sorting, and the functioning of the entire Golgi apparatus. I know. Dysfunction or dysregulation of Golgi glycosylation is also thought to be involved in cancer cell proliferation and disease progression.
The researchers now plan to examine the effects of disrupting this pathway in human cells and potential links to the effects of aging and stress. Potentially, targeted therapies could enhance cellular health and protect against stressors that can cause premature aging.
“Our research not only advances knowledge about how plants age, but may also provide important clues about human aging,” Dehesh said. “If the COG protein complex does not function properly, cells can age prematurely, similar to what is seen in light-deprived plants. This breakthrough is linked to aging and aging. This could have far-reaching implications for disease research.”
The study was published in the journal natural plants.
Source: University of California, Riverside
