Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Deamidation & Deimination in Disease

Julian Banerji writes "Deamidation of ASN residues in Bcl-xl may regulate apoptosis (Zhao). Deimination of histones can regulate their activity (Cuthbert and Wang.) Deiminated ARG in Fibronectin is the target of some autoantibodies in RA (Hida). The involvement of Peptidylarginine deimidase (PAD) in disease is explored in Vossenaar. The location of PAD is characterized in synovial tissue by Chang. A Japanese group has found polymorphisms in PAD linked to RA (Suzuki). The stories speak for themselves. Something else that's pretty cool: large scale unfolding of chromatin by estrogen receptor (Carpenter) "

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The real test...

What happens if these enzymes are knocked out, knocked down (iRNA), or specifically increased? The PAD isoforms complicate matters but Suzuki argues PAD-4 is more involved. Simply being present at the site of autoimmune inflammation, or even elevated at the site, is not very persuasive.