Molecular Physiology of the Cell

“Lysosome and Endocytosis” Gordon conference

Céline Barthelemy and Christos Gournas attended the last “Lysosome and Endocytosis” Gordon conference held in Andover (USA) on 17-22 June 2018. Christos was invited to present a talk on “Conformatin-Dependent Partitioning of Nutrient Transporters into Endocytosis-Protective Membrane Domains”. Céline presented in a poster her recent work about the ubiquitylation and endocytosis of the human LAT1 amino acid transporter.

Relaxing lab outing to visit the famous caves of the Han domain

On June 28th, we organized a team building activity and all together visited the famous caves of the Han domain. A beautiful sunny and relaxing day, well deserved after the hard work of the previous weeks. At the end of the day, we organized a barbecue and watched the Belgium-England World cup game.

“Yeasterday” 2018 meeting in Delft

Elia Saliba and Bruno André attended the 2018 Yesterday meeting in Delft on June 7th. This meetings yearly gathers research groups from the Benelux working on yeasts. Elie was invited to give a presentation entitled “The yeast H⁺-ATPase Pma1 promotes Rag/Gtr-dependent TORC1 activation in response to H⁺-coupled nutrient uptake”.

2018 “PhD student day” at Parentville

As in each year, all members of the institute gathered in the park of Parentville for a giant barbecue at the occasion of the “PhD student day”. And this year, it was a splendid sunny day, with sports activities organized by the PhD student commitee.

“TOR signaling in photosynthetic organisms” EMBO workshop

Elie Saliba attended the “Target Of Rapamycin (TOR) signaling in photosynthetic organisms” workshop organized by the EMBO in Strasbourg (France), 19-20 May 2018.

A friendly moment

Nice photo of the all team taken on April 20. From let to right, Christos Gournas, George Kapetanakis, Céline Barthelemy, Charlotte Felten, Elie Saliba, Minos Evangelinos, Simon Lissoir, Justine Sciarrabone, and Catherine Jauniaux. Only Melody Cools and our student Jasmine Sik were absent, and the boss took the picture.

“Lysosomes and Metabolism” EMBO meeting

B. André attended the “Lysosomes and Metabolism” EMBO workshop organized at the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM) in Napoli (06-09 May). The meeting gathered key investigators covering recent aspects of lysosomal biology linking it to cellular and organismal metabolism as well as human metabolic diseases.

Tribute paper to Marcelle Grenson published in IJMS

Bruno André has published a tribute paper to Pr. Marcelle Grenson in International Journal of Molecular Sciences. M. Grenson, as Professor at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), is the founder of our lab and established many of the scientific and technical bases our our work about amino acid transporters in yeast. A first version of this article has been written at the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the death of Marcelle Grenson and the 50th anniversary of her first publication on yeast amino acid transport.

Melody Cools received her PhD diploma

On March 30th, Melody Cools publicly presented her PhD work and successfully received her diploma. Her research dealt with the role and regulation of amino acid transporters of the yeast vacuole used as a model to better understand equivalent proteins in the human lysosome. Study of these lysosomal transporters is important to better understand the cellular disorders caused by cystinosis, a human genetic disease. Melody will soon move to the lab of Pr. Joris Winderickx (KUL, Leuven) for a postdoc. Thanks a lot to her for her investment in this novel research topic of the lab.

Study on a novel pathway activating TORC1 published in eLife

The TOR kinase complex 1 (TORC1), conserved in all eukaryotic cells, plays a central role in control of cellular growth and autophagy according to nutrient availability, and its dysfunction is associated with several diseases. The activity of TORC1 is typically stimulated when amino acids are provided to amino-acid-starved cells. However, the signal eliciting this TORC1 reactivation in yeast has remained largely unknown. We now report in eLife that it is the influx of H+ coupled to amino acid uptake (via amino-acid/H+ symporters) that triggers this TORC1 activation, and that the plasma membrane H+-ATPase establishing the H+ gradient is a central actor of this mechanism. We propose the model that this H+-ATPase “senses” H+-coupled nutrient uptake and transmits this signal to TORC1. This study opens new perspectives for the study of nutrient sensing and growth control in other species.
This work has been mainly accomplished by Elie SALIBA, who recently defended his PhD thesis. It also involved a collaboration with Dr. Isabelle Georis (IRMW institute).

Article : The yeast H+-ATPase Pma1 promotes Rag/Gtr-dependent TORC1 activation in response to H+-coupled nutrient uptake. Elie Saliba, Minoas Evangelinos, Christos Gournas, Florent Corrillon, Isabelle Georis &Bruno Andre. Elife (in press).