Vojo Deretic on Autophagy, Immunity, and Microbial Adaptations
New Hot Paper Commentary, November 2010
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Article: Autophagy, Immunity, and Microbial Adaptations
Authors: Deretic, V;Levine, B |
Vojo Deretic talks with ScienceWatch.com and answers a few questions about this month's New Hot Papers paper in the field of Microbiolgy.
Why do you think your paper is highly
cited?
Autophagy is a rapidly growing field. One of the areas catalyzing this growth is the role of autophagy in immunity and infection. The authors are some of the key leaders/developers of this field, and I guess, have also done a good job in covering the field as reflected by citations.
Does it describe a new discovery, methodology, or
synthesis of knowledge?
This is primarily a synthesis and a summary of the field still defining its identity. The review comprehensively defines the current state of affairs, distills the key themes and how they fit together into a bigger picture, and identifies areas for future growth. Beth Levine, who is a wonderful scientist of highest caliber and impact, and I worked hard on this review—it is both a conceptual advance and a comprehensive snapshot of the field in its details.
Would you summarize the significance of your paper
in layman's terms?
" Autophagy means "self-digestion," and represents a process whereby cells capture portions of their own cytoplasm into specialized membranous organelles termed autophagosomes where the captured material gets degraded."
Autophagy is a fascinating new process that affects so many aspects of fundamental biology and human health and disease states. Everyone should know at least a bit about what autophagy is, as most of us know what DNA replication is. This "101" level can be found at the beginning in our article, but it quickly gets specialized, so it is useful both for a novice and for the initiated.
How did you become involved in this research, and
how would you describe the particular challenges, setbacks, and
successes that you've encountered along the way?
Autophagy means "self-digestion," and represents a process whereby cells capture portions of their own cytoplasm into specialized membranous organelles termed autophagosomes where the captured material gets degraded. One could look upon this as a form of self-feeding—at times when a cell is subjected to starvation and there are no external sources of food it can go grocery shopping in its own cytoplasm.
I got into this by looking for a way to overcome one of the steps in the infectious cycle of tuberculosis. We thought that induction of autophagy might capture intracellular causative agent of tuberculosis and destroy it by digestion. This and other studies showing that it is indeed possible to do so have paved the way to the growth of this field. I call it "immunophagy" and Beth Levine calls it "xenophagy."
Where do you see your research leading in the
future?
The amazing process of autophagy is so interesting and enticing that it is hard to contain oneself from being interested in both fundamental aspects and its potential applications in disease. My research is probably going to remain at that interface. I am also curious in finding out whether autophagy was one of the first, primordial innate immunity defenses of eukaryotic cells against invading microbes, and whether this is reflected in the present day relationship between mitochondria, autophagy, cell survival, and cell death processes such as apoptosis and necrosis.
As to the field of autophagy itself, it has penetrated in an irreversible way many areas of study, including cancer, neurodegeneration such as Alzheimer's disease, aging, metabolic disorders including diabetes, immunology and inflammation (e.g. Crohn's disease), HIV infection, programmed cell death, etc.
Do you foresee any social or political implications for your research?
Political and social—not likely. However, if using autophagy-altering
drugs we can cure or help with some of the diseases listed above, and I
surely hope so, there may be impact down the line, especially as our
population ages. Note that many of the illnesses touched upon in the
passages above get worse or increase in incidence with
age.
Vojo Deretic, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
University of New Mexico
Health Sciences Center
Albuquerque, NM, USA
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
-
Beth
Levine & Guido Kroemer; "Autophagy is an important
emerging topic in biomedical research. Autophagy (literally
"self-eating") consists in the sequestration of portions..."
New Hot Papers, May 2009.
KEYWORDS: BECLIN 1-DEPENDENT AUTOPHAGY; STARVATION-INDUCED AUTOPHAGY; HEPATITIS-C VIRUS; CELL-DEATH; CROHNS-DISEASE; MYCOBACTERIUM-TUBERCULOSIS; FRANCISELLA-TULARENSIS; CHLAMYDIA-TRACHOMATIS; DEFENSE-MECHANISM; INNATE IMMUNITY.