水通道的生物学研究

Biology of water channel

美国约翰·霍普金斯大学生化教授彼得·埃格瑞博士,他被瑞典皇家科学院授予2003年诺贝尔化学奖,以承认他们的实验室在1991年发现的水通道。水通道或称水孔蛋白的发现为这类蛋白的生化学、生理学和遗传学开创了一个黄金时代。 现在已鉴定了10余种哺乳动物水通道,每种都有其特定的组织分布。在肾脏、肺、眼和脑等组织表达多种水通道,构成水转运的网络。已确定水孔蛋白的基本结构是在细胞膜中以四聚体的形式存在。水通道参与许多临床疾病,包括尿崩症到各种形式水肿的病生理学过程。它们可能是治疗水平衡紊乱性疾病的靶。

Peter Agre, M.D, professor of biological chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Academy recognized him for his laboratory's 1991 discovery of the long-sought ' channels ' that regulate and facilitate water molecule transport through cell membranes, a process essential to all living organisms. The discovery of the water channel, or aquaporin, ushered in a golden age of biochemical, physiological and genetic studies of these proteins. More than ten mammalian aquaporins have been identified, each with a distinct distribution. In the kidney, lung, eye and brain, multiple water-channel homologs are expressed, providing a network for water transport in those locations. Basic features of aquaporin structure have been defined and appeared to assemble in membranes as homotetramers, Aquaporins are likely to prove central to the pathophysiology of a variety of clinical conditions from diabetes insipidus to various forms of edema and, ultimately, they could be a target for therapy in diseases of altered water homeostasis.