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Yeast-Based Research Provides Key to
Genetics
of Liver Failure
Research performed on baker’s yeast in a University of Texas Medical School at Houston lab may help pave the way for life-saving gene therapy for families with a history of liver failure.
Kevin A. Morano, Ph.D.
A team of Italian geneticists recently succeeded in identifying the likely cause of a serious syndrome using key findings from 2004 research conducted by graduate student Amy E. Trott in the lab of Kevin A. Morano, Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the UT Medical School.
The syndrome is a genetic disorder that leads to organ failure and frequently death.
The Italian researchers studied three families with the syndrome to determine what caused liver failure in their children. The findings, published in the May 2006 edition of Nature Genetics, identify mutations in the MPV17 gene as a new locus for the syndrome related to liver damage. The report extensively credits the work of Morano, who first characterized the yeast homolog (related gene) of MPV17.
Morano’s study, funded by the American Heart Association, was published in the June 2004 Eukaryotic Cell.
Baker’s yeast is frequently used in molecular research because it closely mirrors the genes and proteins within a human cell. Morano said that it’s also more cost-effective and easier to study than human cells.
Morano, who also is a faculty member in the UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston (GSBS), added that the Italian geneticists “were able to take the foundation that we laid working with simple yeast to explain in nearly complete biochemical and molecular detail this human disease.”
Samuel Kaplan, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Medical School and GSBS, noted, “This achievement illustrates the incredible value of the type of research quietly undertaken each day at the UT Health Science Center and in laboratories around the world. Collaboration across institutions and across continents, whether direct or indirect, advances research and moves us closer to solving scientific and medical mysteries.”
Morano said he looks forward to seeing clinicians take the genetic findings and begin developing therapy options for patients affected by this type of organ disease. He is currently performing research on protein chaperone function in yeast with a $1.4 million National Institutes of Health grant.
Amy Trott, who received her Ph.D. this year, said, “This study was an excellent opportunity for me as a student to develop skills and approaches in molecular biology that would allow for the application of basic science to questions relevant to clinical research.”
She is doing postdoctoral research in molecular and cell biology at the University of California-Berkeley.
By David Mendel, Public Affairs