Ava Chiang
1/13/20
AP Biology
Current Event Review #13
Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan. "A replacement for exercise? A protein called Sestrin might be responsible for many of the benefits of a good workout." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 January 2020. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200113075830.htm>.
In the article "A replacement for exercise? A protein called Sestrin might be responsible for many of the benefits of a good workout” a study on exercise conducted by a team at the University of Michigan discovered sestrin, a protein that mimics the effect of exercise in flies and mice. Myungjin Kim, Ph.D., a research assistant professor in the Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology says that "Researchers have previously observed that Sestrin accumulates in muscle following exercise.” However, currently, scientists don’t know why or how sestrin occurs.
What the team discovered was that when sestrin levels were overexpressed in flies muscles, those flies had flight abilities above the control group flies (regular flies) even without exercise. Additionally, mice without sestrin were discovered to lack “the improved aerobic capacity, improved respiration and fat burning typically associated with exercise.” Currently, the UMichigan scientists are working with Pura Muñoz-Cánoves, Ph.D., of Pompeu Fabra University in Spain to use sestrin in treatment for muscle atrophy.
Muscle atrophy can occur with aging and with disuse, such as long term illness or injury. If sestrin, a protein said to be able to mimic the benefits of exercise to bodies without any physical movement, can be used in treatment with athletes, military personnel, and patients then it may shorten recovery time. It could also potentially be a cure for diseases that actively cause muscle atrophy such as Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS). Currently, diseases like ALS has no cure, only medication and therapy that can slow it down. Malnutrition due to physical reasons or mental illness (ex: eating disorders) also cause irredeemable damage to the body, sestrin used in treatment may help make a difference.
Strengths of this article includes citation of multiple notable figures committed to this study, this adds credibility to the results. The results of experiments on two types of organisms (mice and flies) were also included to create a bigger picture of the studies. Weakness of the article includes not having a conclusive idea on how sestrin is produced naturally and if it could be produced manually or artificially. There is also no guarantee that sestrin is found in humans since the study did not include humans yet. An improvement for this article would be to wait until there’s more conclusive evidence that sestrin can be used in human treatment before publishing. However, this was a very informative article and very interesting to read.
Ellyn Paris
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
AP Biology
Current Event 13
1/14/20
Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan. "A replacement for exercise? A protein called Sestrin might be responsible for many of the benefits of a good workout." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 January 2020.
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https://bronxvilleapbiology.blogspot.com/2020/01/a-replacement-for-exercise-protein.html
Chiang’s review of the article was very interesting and well written. Her first sentence gave credit to who did this study, as well as where it was done. This allowed the reader to know important details about the article right away. Furthermore, when giving the summary of the article, Chiang first gave the general purpose of this study, and then provided specific experiments that scientists conducted to further their knowledge on sestrin. This created a very good flow throughout his paragraph. Finally, she made a good connection as to how this specific study is connected to the human race. By explaining this connection, she successfully took the bigger picture of the article, and showed the audience how relevant sestrine is to our modern day society.
One way Chiang could have made the review better was by spell checking it. There were very few errors in her review, but having even one grammatical error can make a piece of writing much less professional. She could have also described certain terms (such as muscle atrophy) to make the audience understand these medical conditions better.
Before reading this article, I had never heard of sestrine and its potential use to solve severe health issues. This review taught me much about an interesting, and potentially life-saving, protein.