Future Treatments of Multiple Diseases May Target Shared Biological Networks
11 August 2009 - Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research in the UK, with colleagues in Canada and Switzerland, have found that multiple complex human diseases can be traced back to errors in the same ancient biological networks.
The study, published in the journal Science Signaling, found that diseases including cancer, diabetes, HIV and Alzheimer’s were all linked to certain protein interactions that have been conserved through evolution.
The researchers made the discovery while using sophisticated computer modelling to examine the transient interactions between proteins in humans compared to the interactions in early organisms, on the theory that interactions that survived through 600 million years of evolution must be crucial for cells to function.
They identified hundreds of examples of protein interactions that humans share with our early ancestors of yeasts, worms and fruit-flies, and further analysis showed that a disproportionate number of the genes coding for these protein interactions can cause or exacerbate disease when they malfunction.
Analysis showed that a disproportionate number of the genes coding for these protein interactions can cause or exacerbate disease when they malfunction. Several of these genes were linked to more than one different type of disease – for example, cancer and HIV infection; the kinase AMPK1 was linked to cancer and insulin resistance (linked to type two diabetes); and other proteins linked to diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and HIV.
Lead author Dr Rune Linding, head of the ICR’s Cellular and Molecular Logic Team, says the findings are exciting because it means drugs already developed to treat one disease may help patients with other diseases.
“Alternatively, if researchers can develop drugs that specifically targets one of the biological networks we found, it potentially could work for a range of different diseases,” he says.
