The ALD H1B1 enzyme is activated by alcohol intake and serves to activate the immune system against viruses. However, a study just published in Science Signaling Chinese and American researchers led by Nina Sun assure that the mitochondria of those who do not consume alcohol contain a greater amount of the enzyme that activates defenses.
Mitochondria are the batteries of our cells, which supply the energy necessary for cellular functioning and also act as a control unit through enzymes and protein matrices useful for carrying out the most varied tasks depending on the position that the cell occupies in the body. Thus, in terms of enzymatic and protein structure, gastric cells, for example, have different mitochondria from brain or liver cells, etc.
What researchers at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing and the University of California, Los Angeles, have now discovered is that ALD H1B1, In addition to metabolizing alcohol like the other dehydrogenases of its enzymatic family, it also activates immune defenses innate, thwarting viruses such as influenza A, Zika or dengue.
This is true not only for humans: by experimentally depriving some mice of this enzyme, researchers saw how easily they fell ill with more severe forms of flu.
For a couple of years, it has been observed that the enzyme is linked to MAV, an acronym for mitochondrial antiviral-signalling proteinthat is, the system of mitochondrial proteins that recognize viral RNA that, when activated, produce a cascade of cytokines and interferons that counteract the viral attack.