This study will contribute to a better understanding of how this pathway is regulated in cells.
The Medical Research Council (MRC) has awarded £1.2 million to Giulia Zanetti, head of the Membrane Structure Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute, University College London and Birkbeck, to unravel the complex process of secretion in animal cells.
By using advanced microscopy techniques, this research will help visualize how cells deliver large proteins to the correct location and better understand diseases where there are problems with the transport of these proteins.
For animals to deliver proteins to the right location, either inside or outside the cell, they use a secretory pathway that secretes large proteins into the extracellular matrix (ECM), which forms connective tissue around cells.
The secretory pathway is disrupted in developmental disorders such as chondrodysplasia (diseases characterized by impaired skeletal development) and in diseases such as tissue fibrosis, which occurs due to excessive secretion of collagen into the ECM during wound healing.
Collagen is the main structural protein of the extracellular matrix of various connective tissues of the body and is the most abundant protein known in mammals.
To understand how this pathway is regulated within cells, Zanetti’s lab is using advanced light and electron microscopy to aim to reveal how a group of proteins known as coat protein complex II (COPII) helps package other proteins into carriers that reach their destinations inside and outside the cell.
Overall, the researchers aim to understand how COPII adapts and controls transport based on cargo load and size, shedding light on how large, abundant cargoes such as collagen are secreted.
Zanetti commented: “We are delighted to receive this generous donation from the MRC to support our laboratory placement at the Crick Institute.
“We’re particularly excited to collaborate with the structural biology team at the Crick Institute and use cutting-edge equipment to answer very fundamental biological questions, allowing us to cut a thin window into cells and see in great detail things that were previously invisible.”
