Unlock the key protein that controls the body clock
Recently, one research report published in an international journalScience Translational Medicine, scientists from Beijing, China life Science research institute and other institutions have found a kind of special protein can maintain the circadian clock in mice, In this article, the researchers describe how they have screened thousands of drugs to find the specific molecules that affect the body clock. Body clock is a biological process that regulates body function, one of the most famous is the sleep cycle, but unfortunately, although scientists have made a lot of effort, now they still don't know how biological machines involved in biological clock processes work, and in this study, the researchers uncovered the mystery.
In the study, researchers screened 10,000 experimental drugs for those that had a direct effect on the body clock, and found a compound called Cordycepin. It's one natural compound found in a rare fungus, and for it's quite expensive, researchers can only test it in its synthetic form. The researchers then began to unravel the molecular mechanisms by which cordycepin affects the mice's body clock. In the lab, they simulated traveling around the world by altering the mice's light and dark schedules.In some cases, the researchers will mouse forward time of 8 hours, in other cases it backwards in 8 hours, in both cases, the researchers gave the mice a certain dose of cordycepin, the subsequent monitoring in mice to observe cordycepin how to change mice sleep cycle to adapt to the new environment, the researchers found that compared with the control group normal 8 days, the test group change time was only about 4 days.
After further research on synthetic cordycepin, the researchers found that it binds to an enzyme called RUVBL2, which affects transcription of genes that control the body clock, so that cordycepin can turn this transcription on or off. In addition,RUVBL2 tended to show higher levels in parts of the mice's brains that respond to light signals entering their eyes.
In the study, researchers screened 10,000 experimental drugs for those that had a direct effect on the body clock, and found a compound called Cordycepin. It's one natural compound found in a rare fungus, and for it's quite expensive, researchers can only test it in its synthetic form. The researchers then began to unravel the molecular mechanisms by which cordycepin affects the mice's body clock. In the lab, they simulated traveling around the world by altering the mice's light and dark schedules.In some cases, the researchers will mouse forward time of 8 hours, in other cases it backwards in 8 hours, in both cases, the researchers gave the mice a certain dose of cordycepin, the subsequent monitoring in mice to observe cordycepin how to change mice sleep cycle to adapt to the new environment, the researchers found that compared with the control group normal 8 days, the test group change time was only about 4 days.
After further research on synthetic cordycepin, the researchers found that it binds to an enzyme called RUVBL2, which affects transcription of genes that control the body clock, so that cordycepin can turn this transcription on or off. In addition,RUVBL2 tended to show higher levels in parts of the mice's brains that respond to light signals entering their eyes.
