Long-ping Wen
University of Science & Technology of China, China
Title: Exploiting nanomaterial-induced selective autophagy for enhanced clearance of intracellular aggregate-prone proteins
Biography
Biography: Long-ping Wen
Abstract
Autophagy is a key cellular process for the degradation of cellular constituents such as invading viruses, damaged organelle and long-lived proteins and plays critical roles in many physiological and pathophysiological conditions. A variety of nanomaterials, including carbon, metal, and rare earth oxide nanoparticles, have been demonstrated to induce elevated level of autophagy in different cell types. Recent studies have demonstrated that, in addition to elliciting bulk and non-selective autophagy, some nanomaterials can also induce selective autophagy, which target particular intracellular constituents for degradation. In this talk, I will present the latest results from our laboratory, which demonstrated that engineered nanomaterials, through inducing selective autophagy, enhance clearance of mutant Huntingtin and mutant p53, two types of aggregate-prone intracellular proteins that play critical roles in Huntington's Disease and cancer. These studies may pave the way for the exploitation of nanomaterial-induced autophagy for therapeutic applications towards cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.