Autophagy, which means 'self- eating', is an essential process that involves the degradation of cellular material. Cells use autophagy to clear damaged cellular components and organelles in order to abolish their function when it is not needed in the cell.
To preserve intranuclear quality control and the turnover rate of various nuclear components, cells exposed to different stress conditions need nucleophagy, a mechanism for eliminating unwanted, damaged and dysfunctional nuclear materials. Interestingly, alterations in nuclear morphology are a universal hallmark of several pathologiespathologies in diverse species, including human.
Our preliminary results revealed that the nuclear envelope protein Msp-300 may be involved in nucleophagy and maintenance of nuclear morphology and position.
The main objectives of the project are:
- Objective 1: Elucidate the molecular mechanisms of nucleophagy and nuclear morphodynamics during ageing.
- Objective 2: Re-engineer nucleophagy to ameliorate ageing-related pathologies and rescue ageing phenotype in a Drosophila model for the Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome.
This project is particularly timely given the increasing need for interventions to promote healthy ageing. This project will make a major contribution to our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of nucleophagy during ageing and could potentially be used in applied research aimed towards developing new strategies to fight age-related diseases and to promote healthy ageing.
