Nerdy Science Blog

What does Akirin sounds like to you? Sounds like a Japanese name in some anime right? It is actually a Japanese name, which means “kick my ass”.

ScienceDaily:

A group of scientists headed by Dr. Michael Boutros of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ), collaborating with colleagues of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Strasbourg, made use of this fact: Using the Nobel-prize winning method of RNA interference (RNAi), they switched off individual molecules of the signaling pathway in Drosophila and have thus come across a new member: Akirin, meaning “making things clear” in Japanese.

When they suppressed Akirin production in the immune cells of the flies, these were significantly more susceptible to bacterial infections. And when they knocked down the protein in all body cells, the fly larvae died in an early stage. Colleagues at Japan’s Osaka University investigated the corresponding mouse Akirin: In mice, too, the protein fulfills the same function as in the fruit fly and in man.

Gotcha! “Akirin” actually means “making things clear” in Japanese.

So what is innate immune system? There are two kinds of immune system, which are innate immune system and adaptive immune system. After microbe entering the surface barrier of an organism, for example skin of human, it will trigger the first barrier of immune system. This immune system is called innate immune system. The cells in the innate immune system identify the foreign cells with their antenna-like receptors to detect any foreign structure. Man, it’s complicated to explain (I need to develop a method to explain this immune system thingy).

By the way, there are two responses when this result was published.

Students, “Damn! I will have one more thing to remember in the future!”

Other immunologist, “Holy Cow, there goes another Nobel Prize!”

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