Asma Boukhalfa

Tufts Medical Center · Molecular Cardiology Research Institute

Primary cilia (PC) are microtubules-based structures which regulate different signal transduction cascades related to stress sensing. Previous works established a functional interplay between primary cilium and autophagy pathway (Pampliega et al 2013 Nature; Orhon and Dupont et al 2016 Nat Cell Biol). Under serum starvation and in response to shear...

Autophagy is a conserved molecular pathway directly involved in the degradation and recycling of intracellular components. Autophagy is asso-ciated with a response to stress situations, such as nutrients deficit, chemical toxicity, mechanical stress or microbial host defense. We have recently shown that primary cilium-dependent autophagy is importa...

Primary cilium (PC) is a microtubules-based structure that regulate different signal transduction cascades related to external stress sensing. Previous works established a functional interplay between primary cilium and autophagic machineries (Pampliega et al 2013 Nature; Orhon and Dupont et al 2016 Nat Cell Biol). Under serum starvation and in res...

Cilia are microtubule-based organelles located at the cell surface of many eukaryotic cell types. Cilia control different cellular functions ranging from motility (for motile cilia) to signal transduction pathways (for primary cilia). A variety of signaling pathways are coordinated by this organelle during development, cell migration and cell diffe...

Cells subjected to stress situations mobilize specific membranes and proteins to initiate autophagy. Phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate (PI3P), a crucial lipid in membrane dynamics, is known to be essential in this context. In addition to nutriments deprivation, autophagy is also triggered by fluid-flow induced shear stress in epithelial cells, and t...

Introduction: The FHOD3-V1151I variant has been identified by multiple Genome Wide Association Studies to be associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). FHOD3 regulates actin filament formation which is central to key cardiomyocyte processes including autophagy. The precise role of autophagy in cardiomyopathy is an emerging area of research...

Background: Obese and pre-diabetic women have a higher risk for cardiovascular death than age-matched men with the same symptoms, and there are no effective treatments. We reported that obese and pre-diabetic female Zucker Diabetic Fatty (ZDF-F) rats recapitulate metabolic and cardiac pathology of young obese and pre-diabetic women and exhibit sup...

Objective: Cardiotoxicity from cancer therapy is a rising clinical issue due to a lack of cardioprotective strategies that can be safely applied to cancer patients without diminishing chemotherapeutic efficacy. Modulating autophagy, a conserved cellular homeostasis pathway, can be beneficial by reducing apoptosis in heart disease. However, the impa...

Chemotherapy-induced impairment of autophagy is implicated in cardiac toxicity induced by anti-cancer drugs. Imperfect translation from rodent models and lack of in vitro models of toxicity has limited investigation of autophagic flux dysregulation, preventing design of novel cardioprotective strategies based on autophagy control. Development of an...

Autophagy—the lysosomal degradation of cytoplasmic components via their sequestration into double-membraned autophagosomes—has not been detected non-invasively. Here we show that the flux of autophagosomes can be measured via magnetic resonance imaging or serial near-infrared fluorescence imaging of intravenously injected iron oxide nanoparticles d...

Background: Cardiotoxicity due to chemotherapy remains a challenge. Cardioprotective interventions have not slowed the progression to heart failure. Cardiomyocyte (CM) death can be attributed to autophagy impairment during chemotherapy-induced toxicity. We hypothesize that autophagy activation can be a viable cardioprotective strategy. Methods: H9C...

Introduction & Hypothesis: Untreated obesity induces insulin resistance and heart disease affecting 42% of the US population. Autophagy, a conserved homeostatic process for cellular quality control, plays a critical role in maintaining health. Heart tissues of obese humans and rodent models show impaired autophagy. Drugs that can regulate autophagy...

The primary cilium (PC), a plasma membrane microtubule-based structure, is a sensor of extracellular chemical and mechanical stress stimuli. Upon ciliogenesis, the autophagy protein ATG16L1 and the ciliary protein IFT20 are co-transported to the PC. We demonstrated in a recent study that IFT20 and ATG16L1 interact in a multiprotein complex. This in...

The primary cilium (PC), a plasma membrane microtubule-based structure, is a sensor of extracellular chemical and mechanical stress stimuli. Upon ciliogenesis, the autophagy protein ATG16L1 and the ciliary protein IFT20 are co-transported to the PC. We demonstrated in a recent study that IFT20 and ATG16L1 interact in a multiprotein complex. This in...

Article The autophagy protein ATG16L1 cooperates with IFT20 and INPP5E to regulate the turnover of phosphoinositides at the primary cilium Graphical abstract Highlights d ATG16L1 regulates ciliogenesis independently of macro-autophagy d ATG16L1 interacts with ciliary protein IFT20 via WD40 domain to regulate ciliogenesis d ATG16L1 interacts with th...

The primary cilium (PC), a plasma membrane microtubule-based structure, is a sensor of extracellular chemical and mechanical stress stimuli. Upon ciliogenesis, the autophagy protein ATG16L1 and the ciliary protein IFT20 are co-transported to the PC. We demonstrated in a recent study that IFT20 and ATG16L1 interact in a multiprotein complex. This in...

Dogs with cancer treated with chemotherapy agents such as doxorubicin (DOX) develop cardiovascular toxicity, providing an opportunity to evaluate cardioprotective strategies in the setting of cancer treatment translatable to human disease. However, due to the lack of a suitable approach to culture primary adult canine cardiomyocytes, mechanistic in...

Primary cilium-dependent macroautophagy/autophagy is induced by the urinary flow in epithelial cells of the kidney proximal tubule. A major physiological outcome of this cascade is the control of cell size. Some components of the ATG machinery are recruited at the primary cilium to generate autophagic structures. Shear stress induced by the liquid...

Primary cilium-dependent macroautophagy/autophagy is induced by the urinary flow in epithelial cells of the kidney proximal tubule. A major physiological outcome of this cascade is the control of cell size. Some components of the ATG machinery are recruited at the primary cilium to generate autophagic structures. Shear stress induced by the liquid...

Primary cilia are microtubule-based structures located at the cell surface of many cell types and directly participating in integration of mechanical and chemical stresses related signaling. In parallel, the macro-autophagy pathway is a lysosomal degradative system that allows cells to adapt to various stress situations. In this work, we investigat...

Primary cilium (PC) is a microtubule-based structure that regulate different signal transduction cascades related to external stress sensing. Previous works established a functional interplay between PC and autophagic machineries (Pampliega et al 2013 Nature). Under serum starvation, ATG16L1 is transported to the PC with the ciliary protein IFT20....

Autophagy is a conserved molecular pathway directly involved in the degradation and recycling of intracellular components. Autophagy is associated with a response to stress situations, such as nutrients deficit, chemical toxicity, mechanical stress or microbial host defense. We have recently shown that primary cilium-dependent autophagy is importan...

Autophagy is a conserved molecular pathway directly involved in the degradation and recycling of intracellular components. Autophagy is asso-ciated with a response to stress situations, such as nutrients deficit, chemical toxicity, mechanical stress or microbial host defense. We have recently shown that primary cilium-dependent autophagy is importa...