Assistant Professor Amy Banes-Berceli publishes editorial

When biomedical researchers publish, it is usually with an article in a scientific journal. However, these journals occasionally publish editorials to accompany important research papers. These editorials are meant to provide context and background about the more technical research paper. They often provide scientists who work in a different field a way to understand the significance of a highly specialized report. Writing such editorials is a honor, because editors select those who are established experts in the field and who can communicate well. Sometimes scientists try to give these editorials clever, catchy titles.

In the May 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, Assistant Professor and CBR member Amy Banes-Berceli, of the Department of Biological Sciences, is coauthor with Frank Brosius of the editorial "A New Pair of SOCS for Diabetic Nephropathy" (Volume 21, Pages 723-724). They write

"In this issue of JASN, Ortiz-Munoz et al. provide a new chapter in the JAK/STAT story by demonstrating that down-stream transcriptional targets of this pathway, suppressors of cytokine signaling (SOCS) genes, are activated in rodents with diabetic nephropathy. SOCS proteins bind and interfere with initiating JAK proteins in a negative-feedback manner. Some SOCS proteins also bind to receptor phosphotyrosine residues on the cytokine receptors themselves and further inhibit signaling by competing with STAT molecules for recruitment to the receptor/JAK/STAT complex. Thus, SOCS proteins serve to suppress the JAK/STAT signaling that triggers their expression. This presumably protective feedback response could be critical in a chronic disease such as diabetic nephropathy, which is accompanied by enhanced JAK/STAT expression and activation that presumably lasts for years, if not decades."

Banes-Berceli's laboratory is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.