SUNY Poly CNSE Dean André Melendez Publishes Collaborative Arsenic Toxicity Research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

SUNY Poly CNSE Dean André Melendez Publishes Collaborative Arsenic Toxicity Research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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Thursday, September 15, 2022 - 12:04
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Dean André Melendez

SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering Dean André Melendez published collaborative research focusing on how arsenic toxicity is regulated in the body.

The findings resulted from a partnership with researchers from MIT and the RNA Institute at the University at Albany, and are highlighted in the article, “Arsenite toxicity is regulated by queuine availability and oxidation-induced reprogramming of the human tRNA epitranscriptome,” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers found that, “First, among a battery of oxidizing and alkylating agents, arsenite exposure caused a unique reprogramming of wobble queuosine in the transfer RNA (tRNA) epitranscriptome, which depended upon the micronutrient precursor queuine and was linked to codon-biased shifts in the translation of metabolic proteins known to be linked to arsenite toxicity. Second, we showed that the tRNA epitranscriptome is dynamically and differentially regulated by exposure to a variety of toxicants. Finally, the results have implications for the role of queuine as a micronutrient that determines the human cell response to toxic stresses.”

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