2023-05-02 04:00:21
A single electron is missing, and everything is tormented. This, if you are a cell invaded by disturbing elements: metal ions having lost an electron. This is revealed the team of Raphaël Rodriguez, from the Institut Curie in Paris (CNRS-Inserm), in the review Nature April 26. This radically new process, at play in at least two devastating diseases, mobilizes oxidized copper ions (Cu2 +), which have lost an electron compared to the reduced copper ions (Cu1 +), essential for cellular respiration.
This pathogenic pathway seems to be involved in sepsis and tumor metastases. Explanations. If, in a person infected with a virus or bacteria, the immune response goes into overdrive, it can cause uncontrolled inflammation and major organ failure. This phenomenon, called “sepsis” or “septic shock”, is responsible for at least 11 million deaths per year worldwide – not counting deaths from sepsis linked to Covid-19. Metastases, on the other hand, also kill millions of people a year. It is the course of these “mass murders”, on the scale of the cell, that the researchers have reconstructed. Better still, they open an innovative therapeutic path to neutralize the culprit, this famous oxidized copper ion.
Their laboratory « scientific police” is located at the top of the Sainte-Geneviève mountain, in Paris. Through the window, the dome of the Pantheon casts the shadow cast by a woman of genius. ” We are a stone’s throw from the Radium Institute. Between 1914 and 1934, the building housed the chemistry laboratory of Marie Curie”says Raphaël Rodriguez.
Back to basics
Under the auspices of this double Nobel laureate, the researcher has undertaken a return to basics. In 2015, he set up a cellular and molecular biology laboratory, which he backed up with a chemistry laboratory. “At the start, it was not easy to mix the two cultures, that of biologists and that of chemists”he confides.
However, it was the appearance on the international scene of another serial killer, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, in early 2020, which put researchers on the trail of criminal molecules. “During the first confinement, only researchers engaged in projects related to the pandemic were authorized to come and work here”remembers Raphaël Rodriguez.
His team then decided to branch off towards the study of the anarchic inflammation responsible for the deaths linked to Covid-19. This cataclysm mobilizes cells called macrophages. “We had a specialist in these cells in our laboratory. Our discovery, basically, results from a conjunction of chances. »
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