Membrane traffic in the late endocytic pathway

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Cells are compartmentalized by specialized organelles (little organs within each cell), and cargo including proteins is moved between these compartments by the trafficking of vesicles (little bubbles surrounded by a thin membrane made of a fatty substance called phospholipid and studded with proteins). Some of the cargo is taken up into the cells by vesicles formed at the cell surface that deliver their cargo to organelles called endosomes, endolysosomes and lysosomes. Lysosomes act as storage organelles for enzymes that degrade cargo that is delivered from the cell surface or other parts of the cell. Degradation occurs in endolysosomes formed by the fusion of endosomes with lysosomes. We aim to understand the endolysosome better as the compartment in which degradation takes place. We also aim to understand the proteins that make up the machinery necessary to regulate, coordinate and achieve membrane fusion between endosomes and lysosomes. There are many diseases in which defects in the cell surface and/or in membrane traffic to lysosomes occur. These include rare genetic diseases such as the lysosomal storage disorders and more common diseases including diabetes, atherosclerosis and neurodegenerative diseases as well as infectious diseases where microbes subvert the membrane traffic system in order to infect cells. In the long term our work will contribute to developing better ways of targeting drugs to particular sites within cells for more specific drug therapies.