Eat me not! Interview with Anu Chaudhary on cell surface marker regulating autophagy in humans!

Cells are constantly talking with each other, mostly with the help of cell surface receptors and ligands. This includes information on the amount of 'self-digestion' to perform. Higher self-digestion, or autophagy, leads to faster protein turnover and has been implicated in many age-related diseases, esp. those with an autoimmune component. Could we understand the mechanism controlling levels of autophagy and modulate it to affect disease outcomes?

Anu Chaudhary and her colleagues display an elegant way to screen human genetic variation underlying any observable phenomena. By focusing on response to rapamycin, a drug that induces autophagy, they were able to isolate variations that enhance cellular self-digestion. They use this to characterize cell surface receptors that can vary autophagy levels, and use this knowledge to develop means that could deter auto-antibody production. To learn more about the exciting and relevant finding, please listen to Anu.


For further information, please refer:
Human Diversity in a Cell Surface Receptor that Inhibits Autophagy.
Chaudhary et al., Current Biology, 2016.

Immunological Curate's Egg -- Interview with Chong Luo about defining the line between tumor elimination and autoimmunity.

Immune cells in our body not only function to ward off infections, but also eliminate unfit, and possibly cancerous cells. For this, T cells, a part of our adaptive immune response, recognize the harmful cells within the body and kill them. But sometimes they can get confused, and are unable to distinguish between harmful and normal cells. In this case, they start attacking functional organs, leading to auto-immune disorder. What helps them maintain the capacity to successfully make such distinctions??

Chong Luo and her colleagues probed this query and found that a transcription factor, Foxo1, helps define this fine line. Foxo1 expression level decreases in a certain class of Treg cells during their fight with tumor cells. However, continued expression of Foxo1 in such Treg cells impairs the response and shifts it towards autoimmunity. To understand such regulation, please listen to in to an interview with Chong.


To know more about the work, please read:
Graded Foxo1 activity in Treg cells differentiates tumour immunity from spontaneous autoimmunity
Luo et al., Nature, 2016.