Two LSU biology professors have discovered a new class of cellular connections that could lead to breakthrough medical therapies and treatments to slow down, and possibly reverse, aging and disease.
Alyssa Johnson and Adam Bohnert, both assistant professors in the LSU Department of Biological Sciences and experts in cell and molecular biology, recently received a $1 million grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation for their work, according to a new LSU announcement.
The pair are researching what they call “tubular lysosomes,” differing from the traditional idea of a lysosome as a spherical vesicle—think SpaghettiO shape. Lysosomes are cellular “garbage dumps” for obsolete and unwanted materials, like bacteria and viruses.
Johnson and Bohnert found that tubular lysosomes can form complex networks between the body’s cells that greatly affect stressors like aging and disease. Not every type of tissue in the body of an organism contains these structures, but sometimes the lysosome networks are grown because of outside stressors to the organism. A part of their research tests why these networks form, and whether the tubular lysosomes can be passed on genetically from parent to child, then onto grandchildren and so on.
“This is a major black box in biology where we don’t have a lot of knowledge yet,” Bohnert says. “Tubular lysosomes could hint at ways to slow down the aging process, or even reverse it. This sounds like science fiction, but it could be possible.”
Johnson was the first to find these tubular lysosomes in a fruit fly, which she routinely studies.
They’ve identified a couple of genes that could control them. The question now is whether they can introduce these genes to animals and tissues that don’t normally have them.
“We’re really the only ones studying tubular lysosomes in the world, which puts us in a unique position to break open this field,” Johnson says. Their ongoing research will now likely lead to revisions in textbooks, as it redefines our perception of life at its most basic unit—the cell. Read the full story here.
