Publication Ody Sibon group selected UMCG Open Access Publication of the week

Every week one of the UMCG Research Institutes selects an UMCG Open Access Publication of the Week.

In Week 37^th, Research Insitute Brain and Cognition selected:

Human VPS13A is associated with multiple organelles and influences mitochondrial morphology and lipid droplet motility

Summary
The cells of our body contain compartments that are surrounded by membranes. In order to function properly, these separate compartments need to communicate with each other. This communication consists of exchanging molecules. Yeshaw et al discovered that the protein VPS13A is required to make close contact sites between the compartments and thereby enabling communication. Patients with defects in the VPS13A protein suffer from a neurodegenerative disease and the work by Yeshaw et al demonstrates that this can be explained by defects in cellular communication, especially because of defects in the exchange of lipids between cellular compartments.

Yeshaw, W.M., van der Zwaag, M., Pinto, F., Lahaye, L.L., Faber, A.I., Gómez-Sánchez, R., Dolga, A.M., Poland, C., Monaco, A.P., van IJzendoorn, S., Grzeschik, N.A., Velayos-Baeza, A. & Sibon, O.C.
eLife 2019; 8:e43561