The entrepreneurial cell biologist authored a comprehensive piece outlining the results from a recent study he led that yielded promising implications for cancer and other medical research.
ROCHESTER, MN / ACCESSWIRE / November 24, 2021 / It is with great pleasure that Jan van Deursen, a long-time researcher of aging and age-related diseases, announces that he has authored an article addressing new developments with senescent cells, a subject to which he has dedicated a great deal of his career to studying. The article, which chronicles and summarizes a study led by Dr. van Deursen and conducted in collaboration with Dr. Hu Li, was published by a noted and reputable scientific periodical on October 29, 2021.
At the article's outset, Dr. van Deursen explains that the innate immune system of human beings and other vertebrates serves as an immediate-early first-line of defense system against bacterial and viral infections, a fact which has been established for over a century. He then proceeds to assert that innate immunity also functions as an immediate-early first-line of defense against the body's own cells when these cells endure cellular stresses that can cause pathology, including cancer, providing the following evidence obtained through rigorous scientific observation:
It has been long established that cells in the human body immediately activate p53 in response to a broad spectrum of cellular stresses, including DNA damage, stress caused by DNA replication errors, aberrant mitotic spindles, activated oncogenes, oxidative stress, hypoxia, telomere shortening, and nutrient deprivation. Once activated, p53 induces the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21 to create monophosphorylated forms of RB, which by silencing key cell-cycle genes, ensure that cells under duress do not multiply.
In addition to silencing genes, however, monophosphorylated RB created by p21 activates hundreds of genes in response to stress, including the gene encoding macrophage-attracting chemokine CXCL14. As a result, stressed cells come under immediate immunosurveillance by the macrophages they recruit. These macrophages give the cells they surround about 4 days to recover and switch off p21. If cells are successful in doing so, the recruited macrophages quickly disengage. If not, the macrophages differentiate and that brings in cytotoxic T cells to eliminate target cells under duress.
Thus, the immediate recruitment of macrophages to p21-expressing cells through CXCL14 sets a biological timer that allows for a 4-day period in which stressed cells are in the crosshairs of the innate immune system but can still recuperate and resume their normal functions, with time expiring when the immediate-early innate immune response switches from surveillance to a clearance mode.
This first line of defense suppresses neoplastic growth, highlighting that immediate-early innate immunity not only offers protection against bacterial and viral infections, but also against tumor formation. The fact that the tumor suppressor p53 drives p21 induction and is defective in most human cancers predicts a prominent role for p21-mediated immunoclearance in tumor protection in humans.
What is exciting is that the newly uncovered mechanism of stress-related immunosurveillance provides entry points for the development of new cancer treatments, including hard-to-treat cancers that lack p53 activity. Defects in or attenuation of p21-mediated immunosurveillance, for instance with aging, may accelerate the accumulation of dysfunctional cells in tissues and organs, and as such contribute to age-related diseases other than cancer.
Anyone interested in reading the full text of the article will find it located here, while anyone curious to learn more about Dr. Jan van Deursen and his opinions on a wide range of current medical issues is encouraged to visit his professional blog.
About Jan van Deursen:
Jan van Deursen earned his Ph.D. in cell biology from the University of Nijmegen, Netherlands in 1993. The following year, he moved to the United States and joined the faculty at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee to conduct research on childhood cancers. Dr. van Deursen was offered a staff position at Mayo Clinic in 1999, which he took, and proceeded to develop a curiosity-driven research program focused on the basic biology of cancer and aging. He also directed the transgenic and gene knockout core facility at that institution from 1999 - 2020. Additionally, he served a full 8-year term as the chair of the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from 2012 - 2020.
The crowning achievement of Dr. van Deursen's career in medical research came when he made a series of seminal discoveries that causally linked the accumulation of senescent cells in tissues and organs to aging and the development of age-related diseases, such as cancer, atherosclerosis, and osteoarthritis. Jan van Deursen co-founded Unity Biotechnology, a publicly traded (NASDAQ) biopharmaceutical company whose mission is to pursue his research in order to develop therapeutics to slow, halt, or reverse diseases related to human aging. The company's initial concentration has been on delivering localized therapy in ophthalmologic and neurologic diseases.
Currently, Jan van Deursen lives and works in Rochester, Minnesota. He has been married for over 25 years and has three children.
Contact Information:
Jan van Deursen
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (507) 285-9794
SOURCE: Jan van Deursen