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Credit: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170118000568

How inhibiting the enzyme PDK1 could affect aging and cancer

December 7, 2020

  • KAIST developed algorithms to analyze the molecules involved in the cellular senescence
  • The inhibition of an enzyme called PDK1 could have both anti-cancer and anti-aging effects

Cellular senescence is a physiologic process where a series of changes is suffered by the cell which stops proliferation. In some cases, cells suffer from oxidative stress, shortening of telomeres, or damage in the DNA, which can be duplicated, but the senescence process can prevent this from happening and avoid cancer cells’ proliferation.  The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), together with Amorepacific Corporation in Korea, developed research where the mechanism of cellular senescence was studied as a possible way to approach the aging process and age-related diseases related to senescence cells accumulation. These findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and involved experiments with skin and related tissues. In this study, an enzyme involved in the aging process was found; however, the laboratory’s manipulations interfere with tissue regeneration and cell transformation that could lead to malignity.  With the combination of databases about the cellular senescence process and information gathered from literature, professor Kwang-Hyun Cho of the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering at KAIST managed to identify the molecules that can reverse cellular senescence; they studied and added new characteristic to skin fibroblast and to the process involved in their normal proliferation, quiescence (the process where the non-dividing cells that are able to return to the cell proliferation cycle) and senescence. They created an algorithm that simulated those interactions, and from them, the cells involved in the senescence process were identified.   PDK1 is an enzyme that is found in cancer and was also identified in the incubated senescent skin fibroblast used by scientists. The scientists “found that blocking PDK1 led to the inhibition of two downstream signaling molecules, which in turn restored the cells’ ability to enter back into the cell cycle.” All these results led the researchers to want more; hence more investigations will be held in the future where the effect of PDK1 will be studied deeply.

References: https://phys.org/news/2020-11-simulations-reverse-cell-aging.html

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