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SUMMARY:Special LMNN Seminar - Converging pathways in fatty acylation\, au
 tophagy\, and neurodegeneration
DTSTART:20190508T090000
DTEND:20190508T100000
DTSTAMP:20260930T213409Z
UID:a642ea1a4511ff37807b2d973c6bc45667fa93dd14deb6565ead3f9c
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dale Martin\, Department of Biology\, University of Waterloo
 \, Canada - https://uwaterloo.ca/martin-lab/\nMy research goal is to ide
 ntify points of convergence in pathways that reduce mutant proteins that c
 an be applied broadly to develop therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerat
 ive diseases. Many neurodegenerative diseases share common pathogenic proc
 esses. Often genetic mutations result in dysregulated protein clearance pa
 thways leading to neuronal cell death in particular brain regions and spec
 ific clinical phenotypes. An emerging goal in the treatment of many neurod
 egenerative diseases is to reduce the levels of toxic mutant and/or aggreg
 ated proteins. Autophagy is an essential pathway that removes toxic protei
 ns and damaged organelles from the cell\, but is disrupted in many neurode
 generative diseases\, leading to build up of toxic and aggregated proteins
 . However\, autophagy is dysfunctional in many forms of neurodegeneration.
  My previous research focused on repairing autophagy in the neurodegenerat
 ive disease Huntington disease (HD) to promote clearance of the mutant hun
 tingtin protein. In doing so\, I have identified palmitoylation as a poten
 tial unifying mechanism in autophagy and neurodegeneration. Although many 
 regulators of autophagy are known\, how they rapidly transition from the c
 ytoplasm to their target membranes upon autophagy activation is not well u
 nderstood. Palmitoylation is a dynamic post-translational modification\, s
 imilar to phosphorylation\, involving the reversible addition of a fatty a
 cid\, palmitate\, to cysteine residues. The hydrophobic lipid promotes mem
 brane binding\, protein-protein interactions\, and protein stability. Palm
 itoylation appears to provide a rapid and dynamic mechanism for membrane r
 ecruitment of autophagy regulators to promote mutant protein clearance dur
 ing autophagy.\n 
LOCATION:SV 1717 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==SV%201717
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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