Understanding mechanisms that ensure cell health

Diseases such as cancer or infertility are often associated with changes in the number of centrioles, small structures within cells that are involved in the process of cell division. Researchers at the Gulbenkian Science Institute (IGC) recently published an article in the scientific journal Current Biology, which deepens our understanding of these structures, paving the way for new forms of diagnosis and therapy.

The team of researchers discovered that PLK4 (Polo-like kinase 4) – one of the main proteins that controls the formation of centrioles – is capable of self-regulating, self-destructing, thus ensuring control over the number of centrioles in cells. This "suicide" occurs in a time-controlled manner for the benefit of cell health. Tested also in living organisms, using the fruit fly as a model organism, the importance of the destruction mechanism was confirmed.

The manipulation of centrioles has been the subject of research, in the hope of finding new forms of diagnosis and therapy for certain cancers. Mónica Bettencourt Dias, who leads the team of researchers, believes that understanding the regulation of this protein is a very important step, given that clinical trials "based on the inhibition of PLK4" have already been announced in Canada.

This research was conducted by the IGC in partnership with researchers from the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics (Warsaw, Poland) and the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), and the European Research Council (ERC).