Protein discovery helps fight disease

Shanghai scientists have figured out the structure and regulatory mechanism of a protein family in the human body highly associated with multiple genetic diseases and cancers, which is likely to bring about breakthroughs in medicine.

The discovery, made after years of study by the National Center for Protein Science, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, a branch of the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was published on Thursday on the website of the UK-based journal Nature.

The MLL family of proteins plays a crucial role in the proliferation, growth and development of cells, and their mutation can trigger the improper operation of cells and cause diseases.