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Immune 46: Bats don't STING like a bee
Immune
The Role of Sting in DNA Damage
15 to 20% of pregnancies are miscarried within the first trimester. And so there's some literature to suggest that if you have, you know, a mutation or an integration or something that's going to be a little bit more difficult. Or something that causes damage to the DNA and then it can be sensed in that way. So this is interesting. I just found a nature paper. Yeah, bats have a very low incidence tumors. One of the reasons is they have an efflux pump that pumps out genotoxic chemicals more than other organisms. How about that? Interesting. They also, I think I read that they have an expansion of the proteins that are involved in detecting DNA
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Speaker 3
And the other thing I was thinking of, there's some connections between, and I think this is more recent, but spontaneous miscarriages. I mean, I think there's like 15 to 20% of pregnancies are miscarried within the first trimester. And it's difficult to know why right there, not there are unidentified reasons. And so there's some literature to suggest that if you have, you know, a mutation or an integration or something that's going to be a little bit more difficult. Or something that causes damage to the DNA and then it can be sensed in that way. And then the cell essentially takes care of the issue.
Speaker 4
But it's so early that you wouldn't know. Yeah, I think there are lots of really fascinating things. There's also been
Speaker 2
some really cool papers about how DNA sensing might have to be turned off at fertilization to allow fertilization
Speaker 6
to. Right. Right. Right.
Speaker 1
So this is interesting. I just found a nature paper. Yeah, bats have a very low incidence tumors. And one of the reasons is they have an efflux pump that pumps out genotoxic chemicals more than other organisms. How about that? Interesting. I saw that. Yeah. They also, I think I read that they have an expansion of the proteins that are involved in detecting DNA damage. And I'm hoping proliferation so that you're not expanding those and proliferating those damage events.
Speaker 2
Yeah, basically the more I learn about that immune systems, the more fascinated
Speaker 4
I am about bad immune systems.
Speaker 6
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2
So that if we have this damaged DNA or pathogen DNA in the cytoplasm, it can lead to interfere on production as we've kind of implied. There are a number of different sensors that can sense that DNA. They include one called C gas. They had one called IFI 16, one called DDX41. There's a whole list of them. But they all have in common this signaling adapter protein called sting. And sting is in the ER. It stands for simulator of interfere on genes. Very
Speaker 3
original. Yes.
Speaker 2
Very original. And it can activate, it actually moves from the ER to the Golgi and can activate some downstream signaling, particularly a kinase TBK1 and some transcription factors, the IRFs in order to turn on interfere on beta. And so, sting is really kind of interesting. It has this tail, a C terminal tail that has multiple FUS4 relation sites that allow some of these downstream signaling proteins to dock. And so it provides kind of a platform that allows the kinase and the transcription factor to be brought close to one another so that the kinase TBK can FUS4 relate this transcription factor.
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