Lysosomes at the nexus of cellular quality control and metabolism

Speaker: Dr. Aakriti Jain, UTSW Organiser: Dr. Juan Manuel García-Arcos <p>Lysosomes sit at the crossroads of cellular catabolism and quality control, where they must dismantle chemically diverse cargo while preserving their own integrity. I will discuss two discoveries that reveal how lysosomes solve these complementary challenges and how their failure creates disease vulnerabilities. First, I will describe Lysosomal Leucine Aminopeptidase (LyLAP), an enzyme specialized to processively degrade the hydrophobic α-helices of transmembrane proteins. LyLAP is highly expressed in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, where its loss causes hydrophobic peptides to accumulate