On Monday 20 April at 13.00, Monja Müller defends her PhD dissertation entitled "Decoding Aggrephagy - Unraveling Protein Aggregate Recognition and Conveyance into Lysosomal Degradation Routes".

Proteins are essential to maintain normal functions of a cell. However, due to mutations or stress, proteins can get clustered into protein aggregates that, if not eliminated, can affect cell health and survival. If these aggregates occur within the brain or nervous system, it can lead to death of brain cells and nerve tissue, leading to neurodegenrative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. A general process to maintain cellular homeostasis through the degradation of unwanted material is autophagy. Aggregates can be specifically targeted by a specifc form of autophagy called aggrephagy. For this, protein aggregates must be tagged with the molecular marker ubiquitin. Cells posses so-called E3 ubiquitin ligases that can recognize protein aggregates with high specificty and append ubiquitin chains onto the target to induce the degradation by aggrephagy. Using a cellular model with inducible and trackable protein aggregates, this thesis aimed at decoding the mechanisms of aggrephagy as well as uncovering which role the ubiquitin chains and specific E3 ubiquitin ligases play in the process. The presented findings advance our current understanding of how cells eliminate protein aggregates and may facilitate the development of therapies to targeting those protein aggregates characterizing neurodegenerative diseases.

The summary is written by the PhD student.

The defence is public and takes place in auditorium A 1162-013, Aarhus University. Please see the press release for more information. 

Contact

PhD student Monja Müller
Mail: mmu@biomed.au.dk
Phone: +45 60 53 35 69

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