BBB Seminar: Anna Aragay

Anna Aragay,
Molecular Biology Institute of Barcelona (IBMB), Spanish Research Council (CSIC), Spain, and Department of Biomedicine, University of Bergen

One of the big open questions in the field is how a signal through the activation of a receptor (G protein-coupled receptor, GPCR) can disrupt cell adhesion and induce migration and how these events can lead to pathological circumstances like metastasis. This field has been intensively studied but major questions still need to be resolved. In order to shed some light on the mechanisms of GPCR-induced cell migration, our group has, for many years, been studying the activation of G proteins with the main focus of discerning the pathways that link receptor activation to cell motility, mainly through chemokines as a model system. Our group has recently found a novel interaction between the chemokine receptor CCR2 and the actin-binding protein Filamin A. This interaction is crucial for the internalization and signaling of the receptor

On the other hand a new concept is emerging which implicates mitochondrial dynamics in the regulation of the motor of migrating cells. Recent results from our group have demonstrated that the G protein alpha subunits Gq and G12 are localized in the intermembrane space of mitochondria and have a role in regulating mitochondrial fision.

Chair: Stein Ove Døskeland, Department of Biomedicine