With the invention of the electron microscope five decades ago, scientists have discovered blob-like structures in cells that mysteriously form, move and then disappear.
Despite that the existence of these blobs has been known for half a century, much of it still remains unknown including its function. Scientists, however, are aware that these structures called "assemblages" are made up of cloud-like collection of protein and these are believed to play an important role in the life of the cell and could potentially offer a new option for treating diseases.
It is with this possibility that two researchers have called on experts from various fields of study ranging from cell biology to biophysics to investigate the role of the mysterious formations in health and diseases.
In the review "Assemblages: Functional units formed by cellular phase separation," which was published in The Journal of Cell Biology on Sept.1, Jeffrey Toretsky from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center's Department of Oncology in Washington D.C., and Peter Wright, from Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, pulled together all of the available information on assemblages and called on other experts to take advantage of improvements in technology to have a better understanding of this mysterious structure as these blobs may hold the key to new approaches for treating diseases.
"The combination of improvements to small molecule probes, imaging technology, and intracellular biophysical measurements will advance biology through a greater understanding of assemblages and their role in protein interactions," Toretsky and Wright wrote. "This enhanced ability to study and manipulate assemblages will lead to both deeper mechanistic understanding of biological processes and the ability to extend this knowledge in order to impact human health."
Toretsky and Wright wrote that the blob-like structures are often composed of intrinsically disordered proteins, which could mean that these do not take a specific shape to fit into other proteins. These proteins also appear to seek out for each other and form into assemblages, a process known as "phase separation," with the ability to trap and interact with other proteins and RNA which plays a role in decoding and regulating genes. The assemblages then dissolve once their work, which still remains a mystery, is done.
"This review links together very basic biologic phenomena of protein interaction with the potential for new drug discovery," Toretsky said. "It's an exciting challenge."
