Researchers from the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine have discovered that a compound commonly found in pickled capers has been shown to activate proteins required for normal human brain and heart activity.
The compound named quercetin, commonly consumed when eating capers, can directly regulate proteins required for bodily processes such as the heartbeat, thought, muscular contraction, and normal functioning of the thyroid, pancreas and gastrointestinal tract, researchers have found.
Published in Communications Biology, the discovery was made by the laboratory of Geoffrey Abbott, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine.
Kaitlyn Redford, a graduate student in the Abbott Lab, was first author of the study titled, “The ubiquitous flavonoid quercetin is an atypical KCNQ potassium channel activator.”
The Abbott Lab found that quercetin, a plant-derived bioflavonoid, modulates potassium ion channels in the KCNQ gene family.
These channels are highly influential in human health and their dysfunction is linked to several common human diseases, including diabetes, cardiac arrhythmia, and epilepsy.
“Now that we understand how quercetin controls KCNQ channels,” said Abbott, “future medicinal chemistry studies can be pursued to create and optimize quercetin-related small molecules for potential use as therapeutic drugs.”
The Abbott Lab screened plant extracts for the ability to alter activity of KCNQ channels and found that one percent extract of pickled capers activated channels important for normal human brain and heart activity. Further studies revealed the molecular mechanism—quercetin from the caper extract binds to a region of the KCNQ channel required for responding to electrical activity, and in doing so, tricks the channel into opening when it would normally be closed.
“Increasing the activity of KCNQ channels in different parts of the body is potentially highly beneficial,” said Abbott. “Synthetic drugs that do this have been used to treat epilepsy and show promise in preventing abnormal heart rhythms.”