13. Jan. 2025
A research team led by Gabriel Demo from CEITEC Masaryk University (MUNI) has discovered a new protein that plays a crucial role in controlling protein production in the cells of some of the most resilient and ancient types of microorganisms on Earth. This discovery enhances our understanding of how cells conserve energy and survive in extreme environments, potentially leading to new insights into how cells of higher organisms, including human cells, adapt to changing conditions.
Samples of the rare ancient microorganism Pyrococcus furiosus travelled all the way from Japan to CEITEC MUNI in Brno. These microorganisms (model species of archaea) often thrive in extreme environments where most life forms would not survive, such as hot springs, salt lakes, methane-emitting swamps. They have existed on Earth for billions of years and are key to understanding the origins of life and its functions today.
The CEITEC scientists, in collaboration with Japanese colleagues, investigated how these stress-resilient organisms regulate cellular translation – the process by which a cell produces proteins based on genetic instructions. Since translation is highly energy-intensive, the researchers hypothesised that archaea must have mechanisms to regulate translation based on stress level.
"When we examined the samples using a cryo-electron microscopy, we discovered a previously unknown structure – a novel protein called aRDF. This protein causes two small ribosomal subunits to pair up (dimer),” says Ahmed Hassan, lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research. “This so-called anti-association factor prevents these small ribosomal subunits from associating with the large subunit to form a functional ribosome. By doing so, aRDF regulates protein synthesis and helps the cells conserve energy in the extreme conditions where Pyrococcus furiosus thrives."
The newly discovered aRDF protein thus acts as a "controller" of protein production. It enables cells to better regulate the amount and timing of protein production, which helps them to cope with stressful situations such as high temperatures, nutrient deficiency, or other damage. In such situations, the cells slow down protein production so that it can focus its energy on repair and survival.
The discovery of aRDF raises a critical question: could similar regulatory mechanisms exist in more complex organisms? If such primitive organisms can finely control protein synthesis to adapt to challenging environments, it is possible that higher organisms have evolved similar strategies. “We believe this could represent a previously unknown mechanism of translation regulation – a specific stress response in which the organism, using a similar protein to aRDF, reduces translation activity to adapt to adverse conditions. Once the stress subsides, the protein deactivates, and translation returns to its normal state. If such anti-association factor can pair up (dimerize) the ribosomal subunits of higher organisms, it could help us understand how human cells adapt to stressful conditions,” explains Gabriel Demo, the head of the research team, presenting his hypothesis, which the team aims to verify through further research.
This discovery not only deepens our fundamental understanding of biological processes but also holds promise for a wide range of applications in science and technology, including biomedicine and biotechnology.
This research was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Uchida Energy Science Promotion Foundation, National Institute of Virology and Bacteriology and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Czech Republic under the ERC CZ programme.