Formaldehyde not only damaging DNA, but also damage to proteins read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/1107-formaldehyde-not-only-damaging-dna-but-also-damage-to-proteins

Formaldehyde, a common toxicant and carcinogen recently subjected to new federal regulations, may be more dangerous than previously thought.

A Chemical frequently used in manufacturing goods such as automotive parts and wood products, to damage DNA

But a new study in the American Journal of Pathology finds that the substance may pose a broader threat to health than previously thought of injuring cells in another way.

Anatoly Zhitkovich, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, said, we think formaldehyde is a much more dangerous toxicant in the sense that it is not only damaging DNA but there is also extensive damage to proteins.

In the new study Zhitkovich and his team observed that after brief formaldehyde exposures, cells exhibited a massive polyubiquitination, a process of marking damaged proteins for disposal, lest they accumulate. Shortly, after the polyubiquitination process began, and then they observed the heat shock response as a new set of proteins joined the massive cleanup effort.

In an experiment where they purposely disabled one of the key heat shock response proteins, cells were even more likely to die.

Meanwhile, the scientists also subjected cells to substances known to damage DNA, but not proteins. That suggests that those reactions were not responses to formaldehyde’s DNA damage.

Zhitkovich said the findings might explain why formaldehyde may be toxic to the nervous system. Neurons don’t divide or replicate DNA, so they aren’t as vulnerable to the kind of damage formaldehyde does to DNA.  Animal studies, have shown that formaldehyde exposure undermines brain function such as memory and learning.

To directly test this hypothesis, his group has begun formaldehyde exposure experiments with human neurons in the lab, and also investigating whether formaldehyde damages particular types of proteins or whether it is toxic to them across the board.