Autophagy is an intracellular process that allows the degradation and recycling of cellular components. This pathway is associated with numerous physiological functions and pathological conditions. Understanding its molecular principles is thus of primary relevance for medical applications.
Our research is subdivided in two major areas of interest:
[[Investigation of the membrane rearrangements underlying the biogenesis of the autophagosomes, the vesicular carrier that are the hall mark of autophagy.
For our studies, we are mostly using yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system and immuno-electron microscopy, tomography and correlative electron and light microscopy methods that we have adapted to explore the ultrastructure of this organism.
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3D-reconstruction of an autophagosomal intermediate using immuno-electron tomography. Left panel. Reconstruction of an autophagosomal intermediate obtained from a tomogram, superposed to one of the tomogram images. Right panel. The same structure observed from a different angle. Grey and green circular structures, cargoes; blue, phagophore; yellow, endoplasmic reticulum; red, mitochondrion; dark grey, vacuole. |
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[[Improvement and development of new electron microscopy approaches to increase the number of biological questions that can be addressed with these techniques.
Our expertise in electron microscopy approaches is giving us the opportunity to have numerous collaborations on studies multiple cell biological topics and in various organisms.
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