AGT boss touts genes' athletic implications

Australian researchers have discovered two genes that are critical to understanding elite athletic performance, an Athens conference has heard.

AGT Biosciences (ASX:AGT) CEO Prof Greg Collier was invited to present his team's work at the 7th International Olympic Committee Congress on Sport Sciences this week.

The research involves potential new applications for its patented genes PARL and SelS, which have hitherto been found to have roles in diseases including cancer, ageing, inflammatory disease and diabetes.

Collier told delegates that the genes had major implications on mitochondrial function and skeletal muscle performance, making them intriguing new developments in the search to understand the molecular basis of the performance of elite athletes.

SelS is a protein containing the trace element selenium, which acts as an antioxidant and is believed to play an important role in the recovery of athletes, as well as being generally beneficial to health.

The new AGT findings have confirmed that SelS is present only in type 2, or fast-twitch, skeletal muscle fibres, which are known to be important in explosive performance sports such as sprinting.

The finding represents a strong physiological link between the gene and athletic performance.

PARL, a gene that has a firm association with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, has now been found to be localised in skeletal muscle and regulated by exercise.

AGT work has shown PARL is a mitochondrial protein and essential for normal function of the mitochondria, which provide most of the energy to cells. This makes athletic performance highly dependent on the ability of the mitochondria in muscle cells to function at heir best.

After his presentation, Collier spoke with research groups interested in forming academic collaborations to investigate the contribution of the genes to athletic performance.

Director of business development Dr James Campbell said that nothing had as yet been finalised with these groups, who were involved in longitudinal studies looking at what happened in athletic muscle at a cellular and protein level.

Campbell said any academic collaborations entered into by AGT would give the company rights to commercialisation.

"These genes are fundamental to a range of cellular metabolic processes in diabetes and obesity and also for a range of other diseases as well as in exercise physiology," Campbell said.

"The [International Olympic Committee] asked Greg to talk about them because these are cutting edge to how cells work, particularly in terms of trying to understand peak performance."

AGT shares were trading 1.9 per cent lower at 53 cents at the time of writing.