As scientists work to make sense of the current pandemic, new research has explored how coronavirus attacks cells.
One study showed that coronavirus infection in cells and animal tissue induces important NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide)-dependent enzymes, including poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), which are a critical part of cells’ innate immune response.
The study also showed that cellular NAD+ levels declined greater than three-fold as a result of coronavirus infection. The findings suggest that replenishing NAD+ levels, which decline under viral infection, may support increased PARP activity and cell survival during the innate immune response to coronaviruses.
Dr. Charles Brenner, Lead Investigator at ChromaDex Corporation, joins Dr. Roizen to explain the significance of these findings.
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Featuring:
Charles Brenner, PhD
Dr. Charles Brenner is the Roy J. Carver Chair and Head of Biochemistry at the University of Iowa, as well as a founding co-director of the University of Iowa Obesity Initiative. In 2004, Brenner, then a faculty member at Dartmouth College, discovered nicotinamide riboside (NR) to be a vital precursor of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), which is made available by nicotinamide riboside kinases (Nrks) that are conserved between yeast and humans. In 2007, Dr. Brenner’s lab discovered a second pathway by which NR is converted to NAD+ and showed that NR can extend the lifespan of yeast cells by virtue of elevating NAD+ levels and increasing the activity of the NAD+-dependent Sir2 enzyme.
In the past decade, Dr. Brenner has made multiple seminal contributions to NAD+ metabolism, which include engineering a yeast strain to convert inexpensive NAD+ precursor vitamins into NR, solving the crystal structure of human Nrk1, developing the methods for quantitative NAD+ metabolomics, and demonstrating the activity of oral NR in animal models of fatty liver disease; obesity; type 2 diabetes; diabetic and chemotherapeutic neuropathy; heart failure; and central brain injury. Dr. Brenner also led the first clinical trial of NR, which established safe oral availability in humans. He is currently focusing on the maternal and neonatal effects of oral NR and translating animal discoveries into evidence-based safe, human clinical practice for human conditions of metabolic stress.
