- Obesity is a disease that is related to more than 100 different diseases.
- Juan Miranda Ríos called it AzuCR because it is related to the processing of various sugars.
- Knowing the functions of RNA’s could lead to attacking complex problems such as obesity and diabetes.
It is necessary to be careful with small things, because their absence or presence can change everything, said the Chinese philosopher Han Shan. He phrase that he fits perfectly with a small chain of ribonucleic acid (RNA) that would have a great relevance with obesity and which was discovered and named AzuCR by Juan Miranda Ríos, from the Institute for Biomedical Research (IIBO) of the UNAM.
“Knowing the functions of RNA’s, we can attack complex problems such as obesity, diabetes and, in the long future, cancer”, commented the coordinator of the Nutrition Genetics Unit in the peripheral unit of the IIBO at the National Institute of Pediatrics.
Description of what happened
The small chain was discovered by Miranda Ríos during a stay in the laboratory of Gisela Storz, from the US National Institutes of Health. Have a 164 bases in length and codes for a small protein of 28 amino acidsbut its participation is very important in the regulation of genes related to the metabolism of various sugars.
“When I pointed out that the expression of this small RNA is regulated by different sugars, my boss, in the United States, Dr. Storz, asked me how to say sugar in Spanish. So the RNA was called AzuCR and the protein it encodes AzuC, so the name is linked to the functions it has”.
It is possible, he explained, that the study of these molecules has an impact on human health, since some of the diseases in humans may have their origin in the fact that they do not occur. some small RNAs or small proteins such as AzuCR or the AzuC protein.
The expert explained that so far only a dozen RNAs with dual functions have been discovered. Three of them were thanks to the study of the Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria, one of them recently named by the university researcher.
importance of small
Known as the chain of life, deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA, for its acronym in English, contains the information that makes up every living organism, but no cell can be formed without someone to translate that information and that is the function of ribonucleic acid or RNA, which allows the expression or generation of proteins.
The studies that led to this discovery in the 1960s were done in bacteria, and the same was later found to be the case in more complex organisms. In the early nineties it was found that there were RNAs that also had the ability to regulate gene expression, and they were called small because their size is 30 to 300 bases in length and when they joined other RNAs they affected their ability. to produce proteins.
“Before, RNA was hardly considered, what was important in cells was DNA and proteins, since it was not believed that they had functions in the regulation of genetic expression.”
To this is added that some of these small molecules can also produce small proteins which have important functions in the virulence of pathogenic bacteria, for which reason they have also been called RNA’s with dual functions.
In 2003, the General Directorate of Academic Personnel Affairs supported Miranda Ríos to study techniques that allow the analysis of these small RNAs, one of which is now called AzuCR, which modulates the use of carbon in Escherichia coli (E. coli) and encodes a 28 amino acid protein (called AzuC).
After this sabbatical stay, at UNAM, the researcher continued with the work that led to the publication of the article “Dual function AzuCR RNA modulates carbon metabolism”, published in 2022 in the international journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in the United States. .
Some of the dual RNAs that are known have an important role in the virulence of some pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus or Vibrio cholerae, so knowing how these small RNAs and their proteins work provides guidelines for the design of therapeutic strategies that allow eliminating their function and lead to an improvement in human health.
“It is important to recognize that the study of these RNAs is leading us to understand some disease mechanisms that were not known before. Thinking that some of these genes are going to produce proteins, it turned out that many of the diseases could not be attributed before to having a defective gene. Now we know that there are genes that produce RNA’s that, if not produced in the right amount, can cause diseases”.
The study of these RNA’s, he said, could lead to a better understanding of how diseases such as obesity or diabetes are produced, and even certain types of cancer, so it would be possible to design therapeutic strategies that reduce or block their expression in cancer cells. .
Miranda Ríos is currently studying models of obesity in a type of worm called Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) to see how different diets (high in sugar and in fat) modify the expression of these small RNAs, considering that many of the genes that encode proteins and small RNA’s are very similar in humans.
“If we add large amounts of glucose or fatty acids to the agar in which the worms grow, they consume them and are fatter or larger than those who have a diet without glucose, they live less time and their fertility is very poor. affected”.
This is very similar to what happens with humans, since obese people live less time, have more problems procreating children and their energy generation functions are altered, explained Miranda Ríos.
In addition, the university expert and his team are currently reviewing the expression of these small molecules to design strategies to eliminate their function and reduce the alteration in cancer cells.
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