We study how membrane protein trafficking and quality control mechanisms surveil the membrane proteome, and how their dysregulation results in human disease.
Our research studies how membrane proteins are classified as functional or non-functional by cellular protein quality control mechanisms:
- How do cellular QC mechanisms make these decisions?
- What features of the proteins are recognized?
- What features of the QC machinery provide them the ability to make the distinction?
We are also interested in understanding how integral membrane proteins are correctly maintained at specific intracellular organelles:
- How are specific proteins selectively packaged for sorting?
- What are the consequences of defects in these pathways?
A better understanding of these processes is especially relevant for designing therapeutic interventions for pathological conditions where membrane proteins are mis-sorted to the wrong cellular location or when damaged proteins are not efficiently removed resulting in accumulation of protein aggregates inside the cells.