Study links defective ribosomes to the development of some forms of leukemia
Steven Ellis, Ph.D., believes ribosome genes may help regulate cellular growth and division, which would make them a target for cancer research.
University of Louisville biochemistry professor Steven Ellis, Ph.D., studies ribosomes, structures so common in human cells that his area of specialization has been called boring.
But in January, years of “dull” research paid off when he and several collaborators from MIT, Harvard, the University of Massachusetts and Howard Hughes Medical Institute published a paper in the journal Nature that shows how defective ribosomes — tiny structures in which our cells make the proteins they need to grow and reproduce — play a role in some forms of leukemia.
Ellis studies a rare genetic disorder called Diamond Blackfan Anemia. Babies with DBA don’t make red blood cells and will die without regular transfusions.
Until recently, there was little funding to study DBA, but thanks to a startup grant from UofL’s James Graham Brown Cancer Center and pressure from parents of children with DBA, Ellis was able to secure funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to further his research. He has been able to show that a defective ribosomal gene — one that is shut off — causes DBA. Previously, scientists didn’t think it was possible for a common structure like a ribosome to be involved in such a rare disease.
Ellis’ colleagues, by contrast, are interested in a disease called myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS, in which bone marrow stem cells grow out of control, squeezing out normal cells, causing anemia and, over time, even developing into leukemia.
They also found a ribosomal gene that, when shut down, causes MDS.
“That’s why Nature was interested in our paper — because we have added to the evidence that ribosomes, these very common cellular structures, may be implicated in some cancers,” Ellis said.
Ellis and his colleagues think ribosome genes act as a brake on how fast cells grow, divide and replace themselves. Because cancers often result from out-of-control cell growth, their findings may provide an important target for scientists seeking new treatments.
