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Increasing protein levels in response to a drug

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ggg_bighouse:
good evening everyone,
 I have a question and it is that is not uncommon to see elevation in protein expression particular after prolonged treatment with an inhibitor, what could be the reasons?
Of course I think that one possible answer could be that the organism tries to resist this drug and in response he produces a bigger amount of proteins (to balance the inhibition effect of the drug), but can you think of other reasons?

thanks very much for the help

Babcock_Hall:
Your explanation is teleological, not mechanistic, which is not to say that it has no element of truth.  Do you have any particular examples in mind?

ggg_bighouse:
yes
for example if you use a growing amount of lovastatin there is also a growth in the concentration of HMG coa reductase in the cell

Babcock_Hall:
Do you know the mechanistic explanation for this well-known increase in [HMG-CoA reductase]?  If not, do you care to propose one, based upon transcriptional regulation by concentration of a metabolic intermediate?

Babcock_Hall:
I would think mainly along the lines of regulating the rate at which mRNA coding for HMG-CoA reductase is made.

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