Molecular Physiology of the Cell

Melody Cools and Bruno André attended and contributed to the 4th Symposium organized by the Cystinosis Research Foundation on March 6-7, 2014 at the Beckman Center of the National Academies of Engineering and Science, Irvine, California. The mission of this conference was to unite CRF funded researchers in an effort to encourage collaboration and accelerate the research process.  The keynote speaker at the symposium was Dr. Ana Maria Cuervo, a world renowned expert in the field of autophagy.

 

In a novel paper by Debailleul et al. published in Microbial Cell Factories in collaboration with Dr. Cédric Govaerts (Lab of Structure and function of biological membranes, ULB), we report the development of a new inductible expression system in yeast based on the promoter of the GAP1 gene encoding the general amino acid permease. Using this system, a protocol has been implemented to purify in a few days milligrams of the Gap1 permease from yeast cells. This opens important perspectives for future works on the structure-function relationships of this membrane transporter.

Nitrogen catabolite repressible GAP1 promoter, a new tool for efficient recombinant protein production in S. cerevisiae. Debailleul F, Trubbia C, Frederickx N, Lauwers E, Merhi A, Ruysschaert JM, André B, Govaerts C.
Microb Cell Fact. 2013 Dec 26;12(1):129.

Good news! Elie Saliba and Melody Cools, two graduate students, got their FRIA fellowships and can thus undertake a PhD thesis work in the lab. Elie (who joined the lab last June) investigates the role of arrestin-like proteins in ubiquitylation and endocytosis of the yeast Gap1 permease, and Melody will study a novel amino acid transporter of the vacuole/lysosome.

We attended to and contributed to the “Membranes, Organelles and Traffic” session of the “Cell Biology of Yeasts” meeting which was held on November  5-9. This meeting is organized every two years at the Cold Spring Harbor Lab congress center. Among other things we enjoyed the beautiful autumn colors of the campus (see pictures below).

Bruno André attended and contributed to the 31st “Small Meeting on Yeast Transport and Energetics” which was held in Turkey (Antalya) on September 24-27. The opening “Marcelle Grenson” lecture was given this year by Pr. Georges Diallinas (Athens university, Greece).