News Releases & Research Results Elucidation of the activation regulatory mechanism of the innate immune response molecule STING - Application to therapeutic agents for autoinflammatory diseases -

The results of research conducted by Assistant Professor Mukai and Professor Taguchi of the Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University.

• Even in the absence of viral infection, STING migrated from the endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi apparatus, and COP-I vesicles constantly relocated STING from the Golgi apparatus back to the endoplasmic reticulum, thereby suppressing STING activation.
• The results of this research project revealed the regulatory mechanism of STING in a steady state and the molecular mechanisms of diseases caused by the disruption of the regulatory mechanism at the first time. The inhibitors of STING activation should be useful for treating autoinflammatory diseases.

This project was conducted with the support of the Advanced Research & Development Programs for Medical Innovation (PRIME) by AMED.

The results were published online in Nature Communications on January 4.

Mukai K., et al. Homeostatic regulation of STING by retrograde membrane traffic to the ER Nature Communications
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20234-9