Research

Autophagy is an important homeostatic mechanism for neurons. Autophagy has been implicated in the major age-related neurodegenerative diseases, and neurons appear to have higher rates of basal autophagy than non-neuronal cells. Additionally, neuron-specific depletion of critical autophagy genes in mice leads to early neurodegeneration (Hara et al., 2006; Komatsu et al., 2006; Zhao et al., 2013).

How neurons tightly control the various stages of the autophagy pathway is not well understood. We aim to identify the molecular regulators of neuronal autophagy, and then understand how these regulatory pathways change with age and in the context of neurodegenerative disease.

Since misregulation of autophagy has been implicated in the major neurodegenerative diseases, it is hypothesized that ectopically upregulating autophagy in neurons will have an ameliorative effect. Leveraging the molecular regulators of neuronal autophagy that we identify, we can start to ask whether upregulating neuronal autophagy is actually beneficial in aged individuals. We can also determine how to modulate the autophagy pathway in neurons, potentially establishing therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative diseases.