Experimental Approaches to Investigate Inter-Organelle Contacts

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editors

Ginam Cho

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Los Angeles, CA

Dr. Ginam Cho received his PhD in Molecular Biology from the Seoul National University in Korea. He completed his postdoctoral training in Developmental Neurobiology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in the laboratory of Dr. Jeffrey Golden. After postdoctoral training, he worked at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School as an Instructor, where he co-led research on ER-mitochondria contacts and developed an assay (split-Renilla luciferase assay) to measure ER-mitochondria contacts in live cells. Using this assay as a leverage, he also led a study that screened chemical drugs enhancing ER-mitochondria contacts in HEK293T cells. Currently, he is a faculty member in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles. His current research focuses on investigating cortical development and related neurodevelopmental disorders using multi-disciplinary approaches. He continues to study ER-mitochondria contacts and their roles in normal and abnormal brain development.

Youngshin Lim

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Los Angeles, CA

Dr. Youngshin Lim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center located in Los Angeles. She received her PhD in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania for her study in Developmental Neurobiology. She completed her postdoctoral training in Neurodegeneration at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research. After her postdoctoral training, while at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, she started working on ER-mitochondria contacts and showed that the defects in these contacts might be a potential pathological mechanism underlying REEP1 (receptor expression-enhancing protein1)-mediated Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia, a neurodegenerative disorder mainly affecting distal limbs. She participated in developing a ‘split-Renilla luciferase assay’, which is a method to quantitatively measure the level of ER-mitochondria contacts in live cells. Currently, her primary research focuses on understanding neural development and degeneration as well as investigating pathological mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. She is particularly interested in studying the role(s) of inter-organelle membrane contacts in these disorders.

Collection Overview

The interactions between the subcellular organelles have an essential role in maintaining cellular homeostasis. The ER-mitochondria contact sites, for instance, serve as important communication hot spots and participate in various cellular functions including calcium transfer, lipid biosynthesis, autophagy, apoptosis, handling of the reactive oxygen species and so on. The membrane contact sites, despite the name’s implication, do not involve direct physical contacts between the membranes (i.e., they do not form membrane fusion). Rather, these contacts are merely a close juxtaposition, either transient or stable of the two membranes. Cumulating evidence suggests that dysregulation of the inter-organelle contacts is the cause or consequence of various pathophysiological conditions including cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative-, cardiovascular-, and metabolic diseases. Both increased and decreased levels appear to be detrimental to the health of cells. To study the components of the membrane contact sites and their functions in cells, it is essential to detect the extent of these contacts and visualize them. The goal of this Methods Collection is to provide different experimental approaches to measure and visualize inter-organelle contacts both in live and fixed cells, as well as to isolate and identify the components at the contact sites.