Dance skin - health matters - fibulin-5 protein research - Brief Article

Researchers have discovered what appears to be a link between the lack of one critical protein and the development of wrinkles, sagging skin and serious age-related lung ailments like emphysema, which affects 1.8 million Americans.

The protein, called fibulin-5--or DANCE, for Developing Arteries and Neural Crest EGF-like--plays a big role in keeping skin elastic, say two recent studies conducted independently at two different medical schools. Fibulin-5, the studies discovered, helps develop "stretchy" fibers that keep blood vessels and organs healthy as we age.

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The research, from independent studies at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and reported in the January 10 issue of the British journal Nature, is tantalizing, if inconclusive. When fibulin-5 is missing, skin becomes wrinkled and sags, and blood vessels develop abnormally. When present, the protein appears to connect elastic fibers to their cells, which helps organize them in the skin, lungs and blood vessels. Exactly what fibulin-5 does is not yet known, but it clearly "plays some role in the assembly of an elastic fiber," says Robert Mecham, professor of cell biology at the Washington University School of Medicine.

Just how--and how soon--this science is applied is anybody's guess. Fibulin-5 could be an important component of any anti-aging treatment, researchers say, though the treatment has yet to be developed. "Such an art would be of great therapeutic/cosmetic value, to prevent emphysema and many aspects of aging, including skin wrinkles," says Dr. Kenneth Chien of UCSD's School of Medicine.

Adds Mecham, "It is difficult to know what the clinical implications of this work are. Nevertheless, identifying one of the key players in elastic-fiber assembly is a major step forward and opens new doors for studying this complex, but extremely important process."