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Researchers solved a cellular murder case over 25 years after it went cold. Cannibalistic cells can trigger a rare human immunodeficiency, according to data from fruit flies to mice to people. Now, a major discovery could improve the treatment of cancer.
According to Denise Montell of UC Santa Barbara, the research takes them from fundamental cell biology to knowing human illness and cancer treatment.
The Rac2 gene and its protein are the main characters. Human Rac2 is one of three Rac genes. Rac is very ancient, so it must serve an important function according to the researchers.
Rac proteins help establish the cytoskeleton, the framework of the cell. Dynamic filaments in the cytoskeleton allow cells to change form or retain shape. Montell discovered Rac proteins are essential to cell mobility in 1996 while examining a small group of fruit fly ovary cells. Recently, Rac has been shown to regulate animal cell motility.
In the 1990s, she discovered that a fly’s egg chamber tissue was damaged by a hyperactive Rac1 protein expressed in a few cells. Just producing this active Rac in six to eight cells, destroys the entire tissue, which is roughly 900 cells.
Why did this occur? This was the researchers’ 25-year-old cold case.
A few years ago, research correlated cell eating, or cannibalism, to tissue degradation. In normal fly egg development, border-like cells consume their neighbors when they’re no longer needed. Cellular cannibalism is common. The human body remove millions of old red blood cells every second.
Rac2 is part of complex cannibalistic mechanism. Rac helps the devouring cell encapsulate its target. The team wondered if a hyperactive protein caused border cells to devour their neighbors in early stages.
For the eating process to occur, border cells require a receptor to identify their targets. When the researchers inhibited this receptor, the border cells expressing activated Rac failed to devour their neighbors and the egg chamber survived.
The 25-year-old cold investigation was solved, and it was very satisfying for the researchers. But this is a fairly specialized area of Drosophila egg development. Eventually, the implications would grow.
Sources:
Abhinava K. Mishra et al. (2023). Hyperactive Rac stimulates cannibalism of living target cells and enhances CAR-M-mediated cancer cell killing, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2310221120
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-bad-cells-good-harnessing-cellular.html
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