The findings open new avenues for understanding diseases where inflammation runs amok, including cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and asthma.
An enzyme without a name
The story begins in 1992, when scientists at McGill University were studying a fatty signaling molecule that summons immune cells to the site of an infection. The name of this important molecule is a bit of a mouthful: 5-oxoETE, which is short for 5-oxo-6,8,11,14-eicosatetraenoic acid.
The scientists could see that an enzyme—a biological helper that speeds up chemical reactions—was assembling 5-oxoETE and breaking it back down again. But they didn’t know which human gene carried the blueprint for making the enzyme.