ESET – A Second Pathway for Silencing Retroviruses

ESET – A Second Pathway for Silencing Retroviruses

methylation[1]-GIF

                                                          (DNA Methylation)

Our bodies have had long and sordid encounters with viruses over the eons we’ve evolved.  One special class of viruses is called a retrovirus.  A retrovirus incorporates its genetic material back into the host.

HIV and Herpes are good examples of retroviruses.  it’s also commonly thought that retroviruses of various types can cause cancer by introducing lethal mutations. 

Danny Leung, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia (UBC) has discovered a mechanism cells use to fend off the effects of retroviruses.

A protein called ESET is effective in silencing endogenous (incorporated) retroviruses.  The cell also has another weapon in its toolkit called methylation where a small molecule is appended to the DNA chain to mark it as foreign.

It turns out that cancerous cells, have very little methylation.  Thus inhibiting ESET would allow the retroviruses already found in our cells from generations past to flourish, while, healthy cells would still have methylation running to silence these rogue sequences of DNA.  Thus the inhibition of ESET in cancerous cells would allow the retroviruses to flourish either killing the cell, or marking it for the immune system. 

more information can be found here:

http://techvert.com/health/ubc-graduate-student-finds-startstop-switch-for-retroviruses/

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