A team at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev led by Aeid Igbaria has found a molecular switch that decides whether stressed human cells turn on a survival pathway or undergo programmed cell death. The study was published in Redox Biology and announced on 24 September.
Under mild stress, two proteins, DNAJB12 and DNAJB14, stay bound together and help the cell dispose of proteins that trigger cell death. Under severe stress, rising glutathione breaks those bonds, the two proteins are degraded and the cell commits to programmed death.
Cancer cells often exploit this survival pathway to resist chemotherapy, so disrupting it could make them more vulnerable. The team saw the same cascade in heart models after oxygen deprivation, suggesting possible strategies to protect heart muscle after ischaemic injury.
