Oct 14, 2010 10:32 GMT  ·  By

Scientists from Baylor, Hopkins and Stanford have found that a special protein folding machine in yeast, called TCP, and also present in humans is affected by arsenite, a compound of arsenic which can be found in contaminated water.

This protein folding machine in yeast cells controls the folding of other important 'machines' that power cells, and could explain why the arsenic compound called arsenite can kill us, and at the same time be an effective therapy against diseases and infections.

In order to make this discovery, the researchers used the latest genomic tools and biochemical experiments and proved that arsenic disturbs the functions of the machinery called chaperonin complex, that are necessary for the folding and maturation of several proteins and protein complexes within yeast.

This is not a mechanism unique to yeast, because the researchers found that it exists in many organisms, ranging from bacteria to mammals.

Learning more about arsenite could prove very useful because the world's population continues to grow, and it needs clean water supplies.

“Some of this water has been contaminated with arsenite,” said Mark Johnston, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Genetics, so “the more we learn about how this compound affects our bodies, the more we'll eventually be able to counter its deadly effects.

“In addition, we know that under certain controlled doses, arsenite has therapeutic value.

“This research hopefully gets us closer to a new generation of drugs that achieve maximum benefit with minimum risk.”

Discoveries like this one contribute to safer therapeutic alternatives to arsenite-based drugs, and could also help scientists counter the effects of arsenite poisoning.

Jef D. Boeke, PhD, co-author of the study from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics and The High Throughput Biology Center at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore said that “by better understanding arsenite, we might be able to protect humans from its hazards in the future.

“Arsenite also has beneficial effects, and by focusing on these, we might be able to find safer ways to reap the beneficial effects without the inherent risks involved in using a compound derived from arsenic.”

The research was published in the October 2010 issue of Genetics.