2008-07-14 18:00:00
A new agreement provides MitoSciences with access to kinases and
phosphatases for PDH (pyruvate dehydrogenase), a crucial biomarker for
cancer and diabetes.
EUGENE, Ore.–(EMWNews)–MitoSciences today announces an agreement with the Hospital for Sick
Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Canada, whereby SickKids will provide
MitoSciences with recombinant vector systems for producing the four
kinases and two phosphatases that activate and deactivate the enzyme PDH
(pyruvate dehydrogenase).
MitoSciences has patent pending tests for measuring PDH activity in both
high-throughput and clinical platforms, and intends to use the newly
accessed proteins to provide complete solutions for understanding the
activity of PDH.
PDH has been identified as a key biomarker for cancer, diabetes and
certain inherited diseases, and it is deactivated by kinases and
re-activated by phosphatases.
“MitoSciences has been at the leading edge in designing novel tools for
measuring PDH,” said president Jean-Paul Audette, “and with the
combination of our existing technology and the new proteins from
SickKids we can now provide the most complete solution available
anywhere for understanding PDH and its activity in human and rodent
cells.”
For more than 80 years it has been known that cancer cells generate
their energy principally by glycolytic metabolism rather than by
oxidative metabolism, the latter being the primary energy source in
healthy cells. It has only recently been discovered that this switch,
known as the Warburg effect, is caused at least in part by diminished
PDH activity, and that this diminished activity is the result of
phosphorylation by kinases.
PDH, or more accurately the kinases that deactivate PDH, have also
recently been proposed as an important target for diabetes therapies.
Activation of PDH has the potential to benefit diabetic patients by
inhibiting gluceogenesis and by promoting glucose disposal.
Drugs that selectively inhibit the three PDH kinases are thus highly
sought-after targets for pharmaceutical companies, and these drugs have
the potential to provide therapies that could help millions of cancer
and diabetes sufferers.
The new products that will soon be released by MitoSciences will allow
drug developers to quickly and accurately screen potential PDH kinase
inhibitors.
About MitoSciences Inc.
MitoSciences is a developer and manufacturer of monoclonal antibodies
and immunoassays for use in understanding mitochondrial function and
metabolism. MitoSciences’ products are used by pharmaceutical companies,
clinical laboratories, and basic researchers to unlock the role of
metabolic enzymes in disease, drug therapy, and drug toxicology.
MitoSciences’ products support the rapidly growing fields of systems
biology and personalized medicine.
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