Abstract:
The accumulation of protein aggregates is a manifestation of proteostasis loss under aging-associated cellular stress. Protein aggregation is a highly dynamic process involving reversible phase transitions facilitated by chaperones and organelles. Our earlier work in the unicellular eukaryote yeast first uncovered an unexpected role for mitochondria in protein aggregation and disaggregation. We showed that protein aggregates formed under diverse stress conditions accumulate on mitochondria outer-membrane, and this is followed by chaperone-mediated disaggregation and import of a subset of the misfolded proteins into mitochondria for degradation. Our recent data suggest that this pathway of maintaining proteostasis is of direct relevance to the pathological effects of proteins involved in age-related degenerative diseases and is regulated by the cellular metabolic state. Our ongoing work has also revealed an intimate link between a certain aggregation-disease protein with ER structures required for membrane trafficking, which provides new insight into the mechanism of cellular dysfunction that occurs during the associated disease.
Venue: | Room 7C, Level 7, Duke-NUS |
Host: | Assoc Prof Hyunsoo Shawn Je
Principal Investigator
Neuroscience & Behavioural Disorders Programme, Duke-NUS |
Contact Person: | Joyceline Ng (joyceline.ng@duke-nus.edu.sg)
Neuroscience & Behavioural Disorders Programme, Duke-NUS |
All are welcome. No registration is required.
Date and Time
28 Oct 2022 @ 12:00 - 28 Oct 2022 @ 13:00
Speaker
Prof Rong Li
Director of Mechanobiology Institute, NUS
Professor of Department of Biological Sciences, NUS
Professor Rong Li came from Johns Hopkins University where she served as the Director of the Center for Cell Dynamics in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She has had 27 years of independent research on cellular dynamics and mechanics employing interdisciplinary approaches. She was recruited to NUS in 2019 as the second Director of MBI succeeding Professor Michael Sheetz.