Periodic Reporting for period 4 - AcetyLys (Unravelling the role of lysine acetylation in the regulation of glycolysis in cancer cells through the development of synthetic biology-based tools)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-01-01 al 2022-06-30
In the 1920’s the German scientist Otto Warburg first suggested the link between cancer development and metabolism. In the following years his work was developed into what is currently termed the Warburg effect – the altered metabolism of cancer cells. One of the characteristics of cancer cell metabolism is high rate of glycolysis, the chain of reactions by which living cells metabolize glucose. The metabolism of glucose is executed by 10 different proteins (or enzymes), all of which were found to be acetylated.
The overall objective of our project is to determine if and how acetylation affects the metabolism of glucose and if the effect is different between normal and cancerous cells. In our study we develop tools from the field of synthetic biology that will allow us, and other research groups, to study the direct effect of protein modification by acetylation on cellular metabolism. Better understanding of the correlation between caloric intake, the level of protein modification by acetylation and the regulation of metabolism can aid in understanding the mechanism of numerous human metabolic-related human diseases such as obesity and cancer.