Transcriptional and post-transcriptional control of autophagy: novel mechanisms and new techniques

Abstract

Autophagy is an evolutionarily well conserved process in which the cellular components including damaged organelles are engulfed in autophagosome and eventually delivered to lysosome for degradation.

It has been well studied that autophagy is closely implicated in many diseases such as cancer. In recent years, the transcriptional control of autophagy has been increasingly appreciated and several key nuclear transcriptional factors such as p53, FoxO1 and TFEB have been identified to play important roles in regulating autophagy.

Here I will present some of our recent work on (i) the regulatory function of FoxO1 on autophagy mediated by free fatty acids and histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs); (ii) post-translational modification of TFEB; and (iii) novel techniques in profiling de novo protein synthesis in the course of autophagy

Our data collectively demonstrate the importance of both transcriptional and post-transcriptional control of autophagy.

About the speaker

Dr. Han-Ming SHEN is a Professor at the Department of Physiology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS).

He obtained his Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Medicine from Zhejiang Medical University China in 1985 and 1988, respectively, and PhD from NUS in 1996. He received part of his postdoctoral training in the National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH, USA (2002-2003).

The research focuses of his lab include (1) autophagy-lysosome in cancer cell biology, and (2) mechanisms of cell death (apoptotic and necrotic cell death). Up to date, he has published more than 160 peer-reviewed journal articles and edited the book “Necrotic Cell Death” (Humana Press, 2014; co-edited with Peter Vandenabeele). His work is well cited with more than 16,000 total citation and H-index at 65 (Google Scholar).

He is the Associate Editor for Autophagy, academic editor for PLOS ONE and Editorial Board Member for Aging Cell and Frontiers in Cell-Development Biology. He has received several research awards including two Research Excellence Awards from Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS (in 2007 and 2015, respectively).

Further information can be obtained following his lab link: http://medicine.nus.edu.sg/phys/Members_Faculty_ShenHM.html

A list of future speakers of the Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Science Seminar Series can be found at http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/events/ibcsseminarseries/