Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #mucins
Most recents (2)
We ring in #2022 by introducing a new member of the mucin (MUC) family. Say hello to MUC3B that now joins 3 annotated membrane mucin genes in human chr 7q22! biorxiv.org/content/10.110… 🧵👇#mucins #glycotime
1/6: GRCh38 human genome assembly contains 3 membrane mucin genes (MUC3, MUC12 and MUC17) in chr 7q22. This “MUC3 cluster” is flanked by 3 genes ACHE, TRIM56 and SERPINE1. 
2/6: We used ACHE, TRIM56 and SERPINE1 as genetic landmarks to search primate genomes for conserved MUC3 clusters. To our surprise all primates carry 4 MUC genes sandwiched between landmark genes, including a MUC3B gene that we could not find in human GRCh38!
Our GI tracts, lungs, urinary tract etc are lined with mucus 👉 and, by using the #pathogen P. aeruginosa as a model, this team found that exposure to specific glycans in this mucus triggered downregulation of virulence genes involved in biofilm formation: nature.com/articles/s4156…
2/2 More specifically they showed that showed that “isolated #mucins act at various scales, suppressing distinct virulence pathways, promoting a planktonic lifestyle, reducing cytotoxicity to human epithelia in vitro and attenuating #infection in a porcine burn model.”
3/3 Commenting on the study, Prof K. Ribbeck at MIT says “what we have here is a therapeutic gold mine..These glycans have #biological functions that are very broad...They have the ability to regulate how #microbes behave and really tune their identity”:sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/…
