Shrimp Health Benefits from Heart Disease Research

Kenichi Fujise, M.D., works at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases with Thai graduate students Moltria Tonganunt, left, and Potchanapond Graidist.

Photo by Jennifer Canup

A virus threatening Thailand's shrimp industry led to a research alliance that gives bright young Thai scientists an opportunity to shine in a cutting edge lab at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM).

Thai scientists searching for expertise on fortilin - a protein that prevents cell death - led them to the IMM's Kenichi Fujise, M.D., who also is an associate professor of cardiology at the UT Medical School at Houston and a world leader in fortilin research. Fujise's lab discovered that fortilin plays a role in preventing apoptosis - also known as cell death - and continues to explore the protein's role in heart attack, heart failure and inherited heart disease.

"White Spot Syndrome virus kills shrimp, and shrimping is a major industry in Thailand," Fujise said. Scientists at Prince Songka University in Thailand searched for genes involved in the rapid death of infected shrimp and found the virus-induced loss of fortilin to be one of the major causes. They invited Fujise to deliver a talk on fortilin.

During his visit, Fujise was struck by the difficulty young scientists face in Thailand. Many research buildings were not air-conditioned and temperatures were above 100 degrees. Scientists struggled with fungal contamination in tissue culture because of suboptimal air filtration systems.

"Students there are some of the most eager people I have met. There is a sparkle in their eyes. Yet they don't have the infrastructure to succeed," Fujise said. "It takes a month to conduct an experiment that we do in a week. We take so many things for granted here."

So Fujise invited to his laboratory Potchanapond Graidist, a Prince Songkla University graduate student, who had won a prestigious Thai Research Fund grant permitting her to pursue research anywhere in the world.

“She did a tremendous job,” Fujise said. Graidist was first author of an important fortilin paper published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry in September. She is writing a second paper with Fujise before returning to Thailand.

Working with senior author Fujise and her mentor at Songkla, Professor Amornrat Phongdara, Graidist demonstrated in the JBC paper that fortilin independently protects cells, apart from the action of another important protein that also prevents apoptosis.

The researchers separately silenced genes that produce fortilin and the other protein, known as MCL1, using a technique developed by Fujise.

Both proteins continued to protect cells when the other was silenced, an important finding Fujise explained, because fortilin previously was thought by some scientists to be a mere co-factor of MCL1 rather than an active anti-apoptotic agent. Fujise previously established that MCL1 increases the half-life of fortilin, and that factor now appears to be the biologically significant aspect of the MCL1-fortilin connection.

Graidist and other Thai scientists are looking at ways to overexpress fortilin in shrimp to protect them from White Spot Syndrome virus. She will finish her doctorate at Songkla.

Fujise is confident Graidist will be a leader in Thai science. "I have no doubt she's going to do very well."

Fujise, who also holds a faculty appointment at the UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston, has taken in a new graduate student from Thailand, Moltria Tonganunt. Funding remains a challenge. Because the Thai currency is weak against the dollar, Graidist's grant, which would have lasted more than two years in Thailand, covered only her first six months here, with Fujise funding the last year out of his research grants. He expects that to be a continuing challenge and is seeking philanthropic support.

"My hope is for a constant flow of students from Thailand. Their enthusiasm and diligence have been infectious to other people in my lab," Fujise said. "It will be good for us, good for Thailand and good for science."

By Scott Merville, Public Affairs