Molecular Physiology of the Cell

Our last paper entitled “Transition of yeast Can1 transporter to the inward-facing state unveils an alpha-arrestin target sequence promoting its ubiquitylation and endocytosis” has just been published in the journal Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBoC). This study reports that ubiquitylation and endocytosis of the yeast Can1 transporter are triggered by a substrate-elicited change of its conformation (shift to the inward-facing state) coupled to activation of the TORC1 kinase complex. The experimental work was mainly conducted by Christos Gournas and the data of Can1 structural modeling were generated by Martine Prévost and Maria-Eva Krammer (ULB, Structure and Function of Biological Membranes). 

Kassem GHADDAR with Catherine JAUNIAUX

Kassem Ghaddar very recently made a surprise visit to the lab. It was so nice to see him again, after such a long time 🙂  

Since October 2016, Kassem is Clinical Research Associate at the INC company. Before this, he did his master at ULB (2006-2009), a PhD in our lab thanks to a FRIA fellowship (2010-2014), and then a postdoc in the lab of Miriam Cnop and Decio Eizirik (ULB, Center for Diabetes Research (2014-2016).  It was great to see him very happy in his new job, and we of course remembered the great moments he spent in the lab.

During his PhD work, Kassem buit the first 3D models of the yeast Can1 arginine transporter in collaboration with Martine Prevost and Eva-Maria Krammer (ULB), and succeeded in converting the protein into a lysine transporter (Ghaddar et al. 2014a). He then found that the conformational changes undergone by the protein during catalysis of transport promotes its ubiquitylation and endocytosis (Ghaddar et al. 2014b).       

Christos Gournas and Bruno André attended the 13th Yeast Lipid Conference held in Paris (17-19 May 2017).  

Melody Cools and Bruno André were invited to contribute to the Second Annual Dublin Cystinosis Family Workshop organized by “Cystinosis Ireland” February 23-25th 2017 in Dublin. This was a novel opportunity to meet colleagues involved in research focusing on cystinosis, a rare genetic disease caused by the dysfunctioning of a lysosomal cystine transporter.    

Elie Saliba was invited to present his work at the one-day STUNNING (Structure and Function in Signaling) meeting of the SFMBBM doctoral school of the FRS-FNRS, that has been organized on November 18 at the de Duve institute (Woluwe, Brussels) by PhD students. At the end of the meeting, Elie’s talk was elected by participants as the 2nd best presentation by a PhD student. A few days before, B. André was invited at the de Duve Institute to give a seminar about the “Lateral segregation, ubiquitylation and endocytosis of amino acid transporters in yeast”.