Original title: Copper homeostasis and cuproptosis in health and disease
Cells need copper, but they must keep its levels under control. Too much copper can trigger cuproptosisA form of cell death triggered by copper., a form of cell death. Copper binds to certain modified proteins used in the cell’s energy-making cycle, causing those proteins to clump and create stress. This review describes copper control, cuproptosis, and their possible roles in disease and treatment.
Imagine keeping a kitchen stocked with enough ingredients for dinner. Too little of one ingredient causes trouble, but piling in too much can spoil the dish and make a mess. In this paper, copper is the ingredient cells need in careful amounts, and too much makes important cell proteins clump, leading to cell death.
Copper is needed by cells, but too much can disrupt how they work. Understanding cuproptosis may help explain copper’s role in Wilson’s disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer, and may point to ways of treating disease by changing this cell-death process.
The abstract describes a review of current knowledge, but gives no specific evidence about how strongly cuproptosis contributes to each disease or whether targeting it is an effective treatment. It does not provide details on the studies reviewed or their methods.
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Copper homeostasis and cuproptosis in health and disease — Liyun Chen, Junxia Min, Fudi Wang — Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy — doi:10.1038/s41392-022-01229-y
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.