{"id":34722,"date":"2018-10-31T13:02:55","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T07:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=34722"},"modified":"2018-10-31T13:02:55","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T07:32:55","slug":"antibodies-to-treat-a-few-genetic-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/antibodies-to-treat-a-few-genetic-diseases\/","title":{"rendered":"Antibodies to treat a few genetic diseases:"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-features\/tp-sci-tech-and-agri\/iit-k-antibodies-to-treat-a-few-genetic-diseases\/article19822052.ece\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Antibodies to treat a few genetic diseases<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A team of researchers led by Prof. Arun Shukla from the Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, seems to have found a way to treat the Inherited genetic diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and nephrogenic diabetes.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is Retinitis pigmentosa?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Retinitis pigmentosa is an inherited, degenerative eye disease that leads to progressive loss of vision as one gets older.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is genetic nephrogenic diabetes?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Genetic nephrogenic diabetes arises from kidney cells\u2019 inability to retain water leading to extreme thirst and dehydration.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What are the causes behind it?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The cause of disease is a mutation in the <\/span><b>G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCR)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which causes the receptors to be pulled from the plasma membrane to the inside of the cell just as the receptors reach the cell membrane to start signalling.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the absence of the receptors (rhodopsin GPCR in the case of retinitis pigmentosa and vasopressin GPCR for genetic nephrogenic diabetes) the cells fail to signal and do not function normally.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>How does it function?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have designed synthetic antibody fragments which specifically bind to beta-arrestins at the position where clathrin gets bound.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The antibodies therefore, prevent the clathrin protein from binding to beta-arrestins. It further prevents endocytosis.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The pulling in or trafficking of the <\/span><b>G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCR)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> receptors from the membrane surface to inside the cells (which is called endocytosis) happens when a small family of proteins called beta-arrestins bind to GPCR receptors and to another class of proteins called clathrin.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trying to prevent the trafficking of the GPCR receptors from the membrane surface to inside the cells is like turning the clock back.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rhodopsin and Vasopressin receptors would stay intact on the cell membrane and will start signalling and thus enabling the otherwise mutant cells to function normally.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The designer proteins created by the research team will provide unexplored territory for therapeutic applications for inherited diseases.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What next?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since the mechanism of the two diseases is the same, the antibodies can work equally well immaterial of the cell type involved.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The next step will be to develop new strategies to deliver the antibodies into human live cells and animal models.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The big advantage of using antibodies is that they selectively block receptor endocytosis but not signalling. This provides a unique handle, currently not available anywhere in the world, for targeting a specific GPCR function.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Antibodies to treat a few genetic diseases: Context A team of researchers led by Prof. Arun Shukla from the Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, seems to have found a way to treat the Inherited genetic diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and nephrogenic diabetes. What is Retinitis&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/antibodies-to-treat-a-few-genetic-diseases\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Antibodies to treat a few genetic diseases:<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704957766},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}