JEDDAH: New research from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology has showed that restoring a key cellular molecule involved in energy production can partially reverse the effects of acidic stress in human cells.
Published in Communications Biology, the study examined how cells respond to mildly acidic conditions. Such conditions are common in tumors, inflamed tissues and aging organs, but their direct effects on cells remain poorly understood. Even mild extracellular acidity can disrupt normal cellular function.
KAUST Associate Professor of Bioscience Mo Li said: “Using a precisely controlled bioreactor system, we show that even mild acidity can significantly disrupt how cells generate energy, impair mitochondrial function and trigger stress responses.”
He added that supplementing cells with a widely studied longevity-related molecule could partially restore metabolic function and improve cellular health under acidic stress.
Li said that the findings mattered because similar acidic conditions occurred in diseases such as cancer and inflammation, suggesting they could help to guide future strategies to protect cells and support human health.
According to KAUST, tissue acidity is widely recognized as a feature of diseases such as cancer and chronic inflammation. However, its direct effects on human cells have remained poorly understood, partly due to limitations in experimental control.
In the study, KAUST researchers used a tightly controlled system to isolate the effects of pH from other variables.
Postdoctoral researcher Yingzi Zhang said that the team developed a novel multi-omics framework linking acidity to metabolic reprogramming, immune activation and mitochondrial genome instability, supported by integrated metabolomics, transcriptomics and epigenomics data.
