A team of Faculty of Medicine and Surgery researchers are studying protein mutations involved in pituitary adenoma.

Their reported results are the efforts of researchers from the Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, and involved research visits to the Diamond Light Source’s synchrotron and the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, UK.

The team showed that changes found in specific regions of this protein, reported in patients suffering from pituitary adenoma, adversely affect the ability of the protein to carry out its biological functions. Clinically relevant mutations were introduced into the Aryl hydrocarbon receptor interacting protein (AIP) using gene manipulation techniques. The highly purified protein was then used to measure the effects of these mutations on various interactions with two other similarly isolated proteins.

This is the only group at the UM to study structural biology and isolated, purified proteins at this level.

They are very pleased to announce that this research has been published in the prestigious journal Biochimie, making them one of the first to take advantage of the read-and-publish agreement between the University of Malta and publishers Elsevier. This has resulted in Gold Open Access, and the paper is available online.